


The Shattered One

by MissAnnThropic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 06:23:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 89,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5037277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAnnThropic/pseuds/MissAnnThropic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When it struck Castiel, he was in mid-flight. It dropped him out of the sky like a sparrow buffeted by gale-force winds. Castiel set down the first place he could find. He ended up standing in a field in Switzerland, swaying on his feet and staring down at his body, dazed by what it had just done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Season 5, up to “Changing Channels”
> 
> Original Post Date on LJ: 2/24/12
> 
> Cross-posting: I do not consent to have my fics posted to other websites (such a Goodreads).

Castiel never saw it coming. Though, in hindsight, he probably should have. There was an historical precedent, but it was so ancient, even by angel standards, that no one thought it could happen again.

When it struck Castiel, he was in mid-flight. It dropped him out of the sky like a sparrow buffeted by gale-force winds. Castiel set down the first place he could find, and it was almost more of a plunge than a landing. He ended up standing in a field in Switzerland, swaying on his feet and staring down at his body (or the vessel that held his grace), dazed by what it had just done.

All he could think of was Before. The first time, after Michael toppled the Morning Star. In the beginning, God created angels. They were meant to live so long that repopulation was never a consideration in their genesis. They need never have descendants, for they would live in the beginning and the end time. 

Then came the war, angel against angel. Brother against brother. Michael and Heaven won, but there were casualties. Angels that were supposed to last forever were gone, and quite unexpectedly Heaven found itself with a shortage of warriors.

By then, of course, God had created man. While they were inferior to angels in so many ways, they had some admirable virtues. Like teaching their offspring so they need not make the same mistakes.

God decreed the new batch of angels would come from angels. And so it was. Though they had never been built for it, suddenly angels were capable of creating new life. Not in the human way of forming emotional bonds with one another that led to intimacy. That would give angels too much free will. It would open a door for an angel to put another before God.

No… for angelkind, it was involuntary service as much as anything else done in His name. Being angels, of course, there was no outrage or protest. It just was.

There was no predicting which angels would be chosen. Without warning, a chosen angel’s grace would crack. A shard would separate from the bright core and begin to grow. It would become larger and stronger, feeding off the parent grace much like a human infant in the womb. When it reached critical mass, a second angel would offer up a portion of its grace to complete the cycle, and from the blended ball of grace a new angel was born.

Like all things made by God, it was beautiful. But it hadn’t happened since Lucifer’s expulsion from Heaven.

But it made sense that it would happen again, now. Lucifer was risen, and in the conflagration, angels were lost. Their ranks would need to be replenished.

That rationale hit Castiel and found him numb. Overcome.

He stood in an empty field in Switzerland and felt his splintered grace throb. Another, smaller, throb pulsed alongside his grace.

Acceptance washed over him and he felt himself sink into it. He would not have expected him, of all angels, to have been chosen for this. Fallen from grace, fighting against his brothers and sisters… yet there was no mistaking the sensation in his chest.

Castiel knew one thing with certainty… for a rogue angel like him, this was a death sentence.

He might waste time raging against the injustice, but Castiel was still an angel, no matter how far he’d fallen, and he accepted his fate with bowed head.

He was jarred from his somber reflection when the cellular phone, an annoyingly perky human device, began to buzz in his coat pocket. It would be Dean Winchester; Castiel knew that before he even took it out.

The thought of the Winchesters made Castiel straighten up. His personal mission had always been to help the Winchesters avert the Apocalypse… now it had to happen soon.

While Castiel was still around to help.

**********

When phoning an angel, anything more than one ring felt like forever. Knowing Castiel could fly halfway across the planet in the blink of an eye, it made Dean wonder how the guy couldn’t get the phone to his ear just a little faster.

Three rings was like being ignored.

“Come on, Cas,” Dean muttered as he paced the tacky motel room of the week. Sam was at the wobbly table, their current case spread out on the surface and covering the unsightly stains underneath.

Finally, the ringing stopped. “Hello.”

“Cas, hey.”

“What is it?”

It sucked how they both knew it was never a social call. Not that Dean made those.

“Yeah, Sam and I are working on something here… pretty freaky stuff. Might have Lucifer’s name all over it. Thought you might want to put in your two cents.”

“My…”

“Give us your opinion on what we’re looking at,” Dean translated.

“Oh… yes, of course. Where are you?”

“Suite Dreams Motel, Room 35, Evanston, Illinois.” The second ‘Illinois’ passed his lips, Dean was glancing around the room for Castiel. The angel had a habit of showing up when Dean had barely finished giving him their location. Showing up creepily up in Dean’s personal space most of the time.

But Cas wasn’t there.

It was two long seconds before the sound of wing beats filled the room and suddenly Cas was standing by the far wall, several feet away from Dean. That was surprising. Maybe Dean’s lectures about personal space were finally sinking in. It took long enough.

Dean opened his mouth to speak, but stopped and narrowed his eyes at Castiel once he got a good look at him. He didn’t look that great, a shade paler than normal, and Dean could almost swear he’d looked _unsteady_ when he touched down. Dean had never known Castiel to land like anything less than a deceptively lean _mountain_ , suddenly an immovable force of nature just _there_ , filling up more space than the eyes said he did.

“Cas, you okay? You look kind of yurky.”

Castiel looked up at Dean with a quizzical tilt of his head. “I don’t understand that… what is this work of the Devil you spoke of on the phone?”

Dean gave him the hairy eyeball. If he didn’t know any better, he’d call that Cas evading the question. But he had a point… much bigger fish to fry. “Fine… just let us know if you need a trashcan.”

“What would I need one for?” Castiel asked, breaking from his landing spot and moving toward the brothers.

“In case you’re about to spew.”

Castiel frowned.

“Barf, upchuck, blow chunks, puke, yak, hurl, ralf…” the litany finally hit him, “guh, now I’m not feeling very well.”

Castiel went from puzzled to annoyed at Dean’s perpetual inability to speak in words Castiel could understand.

“He means vomit,” Sam jumped in to forestall any smiting inclinations. “Dean’s saying you look like you might throw up.”

Castiel looked affronted, pushed back his shoulders, and just like that he looked like his usual self again. Slightly uptight, unflappable, and fed up with being reminded of his slipping divinity. Figured that the angel could _will away_ nausea. “I am not going to _spew_.” He shot a glare at Dean, like how dare he suggest Castiel might engage in such a vulgar _human_ act.

“Okay,” Dean held up his hands, “geez… sorry to show concern.”

Castiel flinched and his expression flickered.

“Ignore him,” Sam said, “Dean’s idea of showing concern is a case of the cure being worse than the disease.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Dude, you really think whenever I was sick as a kid was the time to bring out your spaghetti noodle floss in the nose trick? It’s making me gag just thinking about it.”

“Fine, see if I entertain you next time you’re laid up like a pansy,” Dean grumbled.

“I assume this matter of ‘noodle nose flossing’ is not the Devil’s work you mentioned on the phone?” Castiel said evenly. Dean doubted Sam would be able to hear the terse undertone to it that he did. Castiel sure was short-tempered today.

“No… I wish. Here, take a look.” Dean beckoned Castiel toward the table, where an array of grisly photographs were laid out that they’d gotten while posing as federal agents. “So, about a week ago, kids in this town up and start killing their folks. Pretty awful shit, too. I’m never going to look at Tonka trucks the same way again.”

Sam joined in, “This all started suddenly, and it’s widespread. Twelve mothers and fathers have been killed so far.”

“And no killer is older than ten,” Dean added.

“The youngest one was two. Authorities are baffled,” Sam added.

“And honestly, so are we. There’s no indication here of possession,” Dean scratched at the back of his neck, “but we don’t know what else could make kids do this.”

Castiel pursed his lips, eyes narrowing at the pictures. One of his hands drifted forward where he steadied himself primly with the steepled fingers of one hand against the tabletop. “You are correct; this is Lucifer’s doing. Crudely put, it’s a recruitment machine, built on the principle of the slaughter of the innocents. The most horrific defilement of the covenant honor thy mother and thy father.” Castiel glanced between both brothers. “A child’s soul is more powerful than an adult’s in the sense that it is pure. If Lucifer can mark souls for damnation at such an unblemished age, they will one day be among the more powerful demons. Evil impressed upon an infant will grow as the child does.” Castiel obviously tried, and spectacularly failed, to not look at Sam at that.

Then it was Sam’s turn to look like he might throw up.

Dean stiffened defensively.

“So how is he doing it?”

“He isn’t… not directly. This is the work of a particular class of demon. It can force its will upon a human without possessing them. You might compare it to high-level hypnosis. These demons are quite rare, for they are difficult to train; I suspect there is only one that’s responsible for all this.” Castiel’s eyes swept over the buffet of horror on the table with detached calculation, and Dean felt a shiver run up his spine. He could almost forget sometimes just how much of a battle-hardened warrior Castiel was. The ill-fitting coat and suit were misleading.

“Okay, so… how do we stop it?” Dean was already fidgeting, eager to get to work.

After a long moment staring hard at the pictures, Castiel pushed away from the table and drew back his shoulders to look directly at Dean. “You don’t. I’ll take care of this. You two should move on to tracking down a way to defeat Lucifer.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose. Dean’s mouth popped open.

“Uh, Castiel… look, we’re here, we might as well give you a hand,” Sam argued.

Castiel looked crossly at Sam, which surprised Sam into sitting back. Castiel had a glower that would freeze fire.

“You would only be a hindrance to me. I can take care of this problem faster without you. The most effective use of your time would be focusing on finding a weapon we can use against Lucifer.”

Dean was watching Castiel closely, frowning up a storm. The angel looked back at Dean. Sam slid a careful look over at his brother engaged in one of his epic staring contests with Castiel. These could drag on into uncomfortable territory in a heartbeat.

Dean was the one to break this time. “Okay, Cas… if you’re sure you can handle this on your own.”

Castiel looked insulted at the insinuation that he couldn’t. 

Dean held up his hands in surrender. “Okay… Sam, let’s pack it up.”

That was Castiel’s cue to vanish without a word of parting.

The brothers looked around the room, still smelling of ozone and feathers. Sam broke the silence first. “What the hell was that all about?”

“I have no freaking clue.”

“Are we going to just leave him on his own to do this?” Sam asked dubiously.

Dean scowled. “I don’t like leaving before this is taken care of any more than you do, but Cas is probably right. He’s off the scale on the badass-o-meter without us getting in his way. Might even have the demon in a chokehold as we speak.” Dean mulled it over and came to a decision. “If Cas is all of a sudden cool with being the attack dog against the Apocalypse, then I say we knuckle down, find the next lackey of Satan, and sic Cas on it.”

Apparently Sam could see the logic there, since he stood and started packing up their things.

They packed in silence a few minutes before Sam asked in concern, “Did he look okay to you?”

Dean paused in the act of stuffing a shirt in his duffle bag. Dean sighed. “Not really…”

“You think he’s… falling?”

“I don’t know… he said he’s cut off from Heaven, so…” Dean shrugged.

Sam worried his bottom lip with his teeth but said nothing else. 

Even Dean could see the writing on the wall on that one. If Castiel was falling, it made his new urgency make sense. If Cas knew he didn’t have much longer to use his angelic abilities to their advantage…

Sam hurried his packing.

**********

Battling with the demon made Castiel feel better. Cathartic, as humans would say. He didn’t realize how much anger and frustration had built up in him about the ticking time bomb in his grace until there was a demon in front of him and he let it all spill out. He might have been a little too enthusiastic in his dispatching of the demon, truth be told, but he knew Dean would not have thought so. Somehow, that made it all right.

But even once the demon was gone, the shattered one in his chest remained. Castiel wanted to mount a war against it, too. He had important work to do on earth, two humans that needed him. It wasn’t fair. He should be allowed to live.

The brief rush of rage passed, and Castiel settled. The shattered one within him settled in tandem, bound to his every thought. It was slave to a higher power, just as Castiel was. They were comrades in this as much as foes. Each as doomed as the other.

Castiel wondered if God didn’t have a dark sense of humor. Castiel was an angel, albeit fallen, but he would not have to become human in order to know mortality.

But his fate now was something he could not change, and it was unangel-like to brood on such things.

He gathered himself up and went in search of the next battle. He had to win as many for the Winchesters as he could… and hope, once he was gone, that they could win the war.

**********

It had been a ball-busting day, though it had involved little more than riding in the car. Still, it was the quality to the driving that made all the difference. Castiel was running them into the ground lately… or at least it felt that way.

Dean was that special brand of exhausted where he had actually passed the ability to sleep long ago, strung out on caffeine and nerves all shot to hell that they didn’t even know what the hell was going on anymore. Sam, luckily, hadn’t quite reached that point of ‘too tired to even sleep’. The second they stopped for the night, he flopped down on one of the motel beds and was out like a light in ten seconds flat. Dean watched him enviously a moment, then went outside to fetch a beer from the cooler in the back seat. It was the last beer, and all the ice had melted hours ago, so it was tepid at best, but the rote motion of hand to mouth, swallow, lower hand, repeat, had a soothing quality to it. He leaned against the car and took a rare moment to think.

For almost a week, they had been tearing up the highways putting out hellfires. Dean might have thought, once upon a time, that having an angel attack dog would be cool. After having one, he was beginning to think otherwise.

It was a pattern now, and a nerve-wracking one. Sam and Dean would scour the news for signs of demon activity. The big ones (big enough to suggest Lucifer-level hijinks), and the Winchesters were off. They got there, put their noses to the grindstone, researched like crazy… which was all pretty par for the course. But instead of identifying the fugly they were hunting and going after it with guns blazing, once they had a target they called Castiel. The angel showed up and the case was handed off with all the finesse of a game of hot potato. There was no salting and burning and no guns blazing for the Winchester boys. The second Cas had the dirt on the latest beastie they’d found, the brothers were on the road again, racing after the next big bad breathing down humanity’s collective neck.

It made for frustrating work because: 1) it had yet to get them any closer to Lucifer himself (though he had to be mighty pissed that so many of his heavy-hitters were getting knocked on their asses while he was trying to host an apocalypse), and 2) fact was, Dean never realized before how relaxing the _hard part_ of hunting was. A week of never sticking around long enough to follow through, and he was worn out. He loved his car to death, but he was starting to get sick of the sight of her dashboard. He couldn’t even guess how many miles they’d covered in a week.

It was hard to complain, because Castiel was kicking ass (and sometimes taking names) like gang busters. Dean had never seen that wrathful side of him so out in the open. Dean could almost feel a tiny bit sorry for the demons they sicced Cas on, because he was working that ‘warrior of God’ thing lately. And all that was while he also searched for God. It was impressive to say the least, and pretty much screamed ‘stop being a baby and get the job done, Winchester’ at Dean (in a voice in his head that sounded eerily like John Winchester).

But on the other hand, Dean didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up. He didn’t know how much longer Sam could. And if they got frayed at the ends, so punch-drunk tired they tried gargling their shaving cream and shaving with mouthwash, well, that couldn’t help them resist the efforts of Michael and Lucifer to ride their respective asses, could it?

Of course, the alternative was to say ‘gee, this is tough, mind if we take a little break from saving the world?’ As long as Castiel was raring to go, a smiting machine, Dean and Sam dare not be the ones to fuck it all up. Again. Though at this rate, it might get to the point where it wasn’t a matter of choice anymore.

At a loss for what to do, Dean took another drink of his beer.

The quiet of the night was broken when Dean’s cell phone chirped in his pocket. With a sigh, he pulled it out and saw a message from Castiel. 

_where?_

Dean steeled himself and texted back _wichita falls texas scotland park motel_

He’d no sooner hit ‘send’ when Castiel was right beside him. He landed with a thud on the gravel and for a split second his knees threatened to buckle. Dean thought Cas was about to pitch right into him, and he shot out a hand to catch him. “Whoa… you okay?”

In the next second, Castiel had gathered himself and was no closer to falling over than the Impala was. “I’m fine. What have you and Sam found?”

Dean could feel his eye right start twitching. “Nothing, man… Cas, we had to stop to _sleep_.”

Castiel didn’t say anything, but the tight press of his lips let Dean know he wasn’t happy about that.

“Look, no one wants to ruin Lucifer’s party more than me and Sam do, but…” Dean sighed, surrendering. If he had a white flag, he’d be waving it. “We can’t keep this pace up.”

Castiel looked at him curiously.

“We’re only _human_. We have limits. And I figure it can only play to Michael and Lucifer’s grand plans if we crack under the pressure.”

Castiel pondered that a moment. “You and Sam are… fatigued.”

“ _Fucking exhausted_. I’m not too proud to say it – we can’t keep up with you. Maybe we could bring it down a notch?”

Castiel looked out across the near-empty parking lot and the highway beyond, silent. He hadn’t outright objected, so Dean was going to cross his fingers.

“What’s going on with you lately, anyway?” he asked. When Castiel looked his way again, Dean shrugged. “You’re kinda… manic. What’s the deal?”

Castiel stared unblinkingly at Dean, and there was something big and awkward squatting in the silence.

Dean shook his head. “Never mind, stupid question. Apocalypse.” Castiel neither agreed nor disagreed, but it was pretty fucking obvious. “Hey…” Dean cleared his throat. “You, ah… you’ve been looking kind of slammed whenever you show up lately. Your landing gear stuck or something?”

Castiel stiffened for a second, and Dean wanted to feel annoyed or exasperated or _something_ by that, but he was mostly just _tired_. He was prepared for another brush off (Castiel had a capacity for staying on point that would make an OCD terrier with a ball fixation proud), but then his posture relaxed (damn near slouched) and he shifted closer to Dean. “Flying has become more… taxing on me than it used to be.”

Dean’s eyebrows rose. “Shit, man, if this back-to-back hunting is running you ragged, too, maybe we all ought to step back.”

“There’s no time.”

“Well, _make_ the time. Because a frazzled angel and two dead tired hunters aren’t going to do the world a bit of good. One of the things my dad taught me is that you have to know when you’re tired to the point that you’re a danger to yourself and the people you hunt with.”

Castiel looked peeved by that, but he didn’t argue.

Dean counted that a victory. And a sign that Castiel was more exhausted than he would admit. It was reassuring and frightening at the same time. Reassuring to know that he and Sam weren’t total pussies for needing a break, because Cas did, too. Frightening, because Castiel was an angel… he shouldn’t need a break. Ever.

“So, uh… this ‘cut off from Heaven’ thing sucks ass,” he offered lamely in an attempt to be all caring and sharing on the matter.

Castiel glanced at him, brows furrowed.

“You know, the whole… first not being able to heal Bobby, then the trouble flying… just… sorry.”

Castiel hesitated a beat before answering lowly, “It’s not your fault.”

Dean snorted and took another drink. Castiel inched cautiously closer to Dean’s side and leaned back, copying Dean and putting his weight on the Impala, but doing it almost experimentally. Maybe trying out taking a load off, or maybe worried Dean would jump down his throat for touching his beloved car. Dean just lifted his eyebrows at Castiel giving in to any hint of weariness.

Castiel gave an abortive sigh and let his hands hang at his sides.

“I have an idea,” Dean said. Castiel looked up at him slowly. “Stick with us tomorrow. Do the hunting evil thing our way.”

Castiel frowned. “Your way is inefficient and slow.”

Kicker was, that _wasn’t_ meant as an insult. So he tried not to take it as one. “Exactly… I’d say slow and steady would do you some good right now. And don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. Just ask the tortoise.”

Castiel’s face screwed. “Why would I consult a tortoise on methods of hunting?”

Dean snorted. “Never mind. Just… how about Sam and I meet you out here tomorrow morning, say eleven o’clock? We’ll grab lunch, pile in the car, and figure it out from there.”

Castiel didn’t look particularly sold on the idea, but Dean didn’t give him a chance to object. He pushed off the car, tossed his empty bottle into the night, and said, “See you tomorrow, Cas.”

Castiel relented with a sag of his shoulders. “Very well. Goodnight, Dean.”

The angel was still leaning against the Impala when Dean slipped back into the motel room.

**********

Time had always been an unending thing to Castiel. There was the shore of the beginning, where God bade the very heartbeat of eternity to start beating, but everywhere else minutes and hours and days and years and centuries stretched on infinitely. An ocean of eons, rolling horizon to horizon and sinking to depths unknowable to any but God himself.

Castiel used to swim in that sea of timelessness and knew only peace. He reveled in everlasting. He floated on forever.

That was before the shattered one broke him in two… a split that would not heal. A crack that would slowly end his existence. Every second it was with him was another second chipped away from Castiel’s lifeline.

Now, the ocean of time had an edge, and Castiel was drifting ever closer to falling off.

**********

Given Castiel’s less-than-enthusiastic reception of the idea of ‘doing it human-style for a day’ the night before, Dean was pleasantly surprised to find Castiel standing outside the motel waiting for them the next day near noon. He’d told Sam about inviting the angel to ride along for the day, and Sam just looked relieved that it meant Castiel had to slow down to do it. They all fucking needed this.

They all got in the car, Dean and Sam in front with Castiel in the backseat, and Dean drove until he found a Whataburger. Castiel quietly followed their lead and trailed them inside.

“Why don’t you guys grab us a table, I’ll order,” Dean offered. He knew what Sam would want just because he’d lived freakishly up in his business their whole lives. He probably could have gone into any restaurant in America, looked at the menu, and guessed what Sam would like. It was an obscure older brother superpower. He glanced at Castiel. “You want anything?”

Castiel’s eyes narrowed. “I do not eat.”

Mores the pity, Dean thought, but he shrugged and turned to get in line. Sam and Castiel went off in search of a semi-clean table.

When Dean made his way over with a tray laden with two drinks, two burgers (grilled chicken, in Sam’s case), and two orders of french fries, he had to pick between sitting next to his brother or sitting next to Cas… they were opposite each other at a booth. He opted for sitting next to Cas, because at least if he wasn’t eating Dean wouldn’t knock elbows with him while he chowed down on his own food.

Dean passed Sam his lunch, arranged his own in front of him, then turned to unwrapping his burger as he asked, “So… what’s the plan for today?”

Sam stuffed a fry in his mouth. “While we were passing through Tulsa yesterday and I could get some spotty wifi coverage, I read some weather reports out of Shreveport that might be promising.”

“We talking ‘biblical’ weird or just your run-of-the-mill demon action?” Dean asked, “Because really, at this point, we got to start being picky about what cases we take. No more small-time demons for this hunting trio. We’re strictly top-level evil-SOB-killers.”

Sam shrugged. “Well, I didn’t get to look into it much before the internet kicked out. I should have looked it up last night, but…”

Dean waved it off. He remembered what a zombie Sam had been yesterday when they finally stopped. “Well, maybe we should troll around looking for a place where you can jack in.”

“You are so _dated_ , Dean… it’s been years since anyone actually ‘jacked into’ the internet.”

“It’ll never go away completely. Neo still jacked in.”

Sam just stared at him. “I don’t know if I should feel embarrassed or sad that you use the Matrix as a basis for reality.”

Dean opened his mouth to retort… but a loud growl beat him to the punch. For a split second, Dean thought it was his stomach telling him to shovel it in faster. Sam’s slightly shocked look made Dean realize… no, not _his_ stomach.

He glanced over at Castiel next to him. “Dude, did your stomach just growl?”

Castiel was looking down at himself. He brought his chin up, and he looked flustered and perplexed. “I don’t… that has never happened before.”

Dean frowned while Sam ventured, “Uh… are you sure you’re not hungry?”

Castiel scowled.

Dean jumped in to spare Sam the withering weight of Castiel’s full glare. “Would you even know what hungry feels like?”

Castiel looked toward Dean and tilted his head. He seemed intrigued by the question.

Deciding there was only one way to find out, Dean tore his burger in half and offered one of them to Cas. “Here… try it.”

While Sam was gaping at Dean sharing his food (which, in Dean’s world, was right up there with letting someone play emo-music in his car), Castiel took the torn burger from Dean and studied it for a moment. He seemed to contemplate how to approach it, then took a tentative bite. He chewed methodically, seeming to catalogue the sensations, then he swallowed.

Dean waited.

Castiel’s eyes flickered from Dean to the burger and back again… then Castiel took a larger, more heartfelt bite.

“Huh,” Dean grunted. Not what he’d been expecting when he woke up that morning, but this was a surprise he could roll with. Better than the apocalyptic kind they got lately. 

He shoved his order of fries between them so he and Cas could share. He ended up getting less than half of them. Apparently Castiel was not only hungry, he was ravenous. Dean had an uncomfortable thought that maybe Castiel had been hungry for days now… he just didn’t know it. The idea fairly horrified Dean. Personally, Dean could imagine few things worse than starving. He made a mental note to make it a point to feed the angel regularly. Apparently part of falling was the need to eat.

That was just as disturbing as the recent problems with flight, but Dean tried not to let it occupy his thoughts too much. He couldn’t give Cas a boost back up into Heaven, but he _could_ work on tracking down Lucifer and ending his sorry ass and the apocalypse he rode in on.

**********

It was alarming how much of Castiel’s strength the shattered one took into itself. At first it had been a nominal drain on his grace. He could tell it was there, a parasitic splinter inside him, but it didn’t cripple him in any capacity. He could still do all the things he once did (even if they took a little more effort on his part). He accepted its presence – and even its eventual role in his death – but he didn’t have to contend with it in any meaningful sense. The Winchesters had taught him avoidance and denial enough that he mimicked them well.

But the longer the nascent angel coexisted with Castiel, the more it stole from him. It placed limits on how far and fast he could fly, and it schooled him in exhaustion when he pushed those limits. Proximity to demons – an event that used to fill him with righteous heavenly wrath – now evoked revulsion that swam through his essence like a black slime, making Castiel acutely uncomfortable and long to escape himself. His vessel now demanded food at regular intervals. He’d never had to tend to the human needs of his vessel before. They were beneath him, unworthy of his indulgence as a superior being.

If his brothers and sisters could see him, sitting in diners eating charred animals and processed vegetation… the shame was almost a physical thing, pushing him down toward the earth, pinning him there with its weight.

Or maybe that was just the shattered one’s doing.

The Winchesters assumed his failing angelic powers were symptoms of falling. Castiel never corrected them. He had decided not to tell the brothers the truth about what was happening to him. They wouldn’t be able to understand it in angelic terms anyway, and to try and fit this distinctly angel experience into a human frame of reference would make a freak of him. It wasn’t… it was an all-too-angel phenomenon, a perfectly natural event. The Winchesters wouldn’t see that… they’d see the wrong of a male (he wasn’t one) with child (it wasn’t a child). He envisioned all the work he’d put into earning that look of camaraderie from Dean Winchester vanishing behind the veil of ‘alien’ he’d somehow shed along the way.

Castiel would prefer to live his last days without ridicule from the only two souls left in existence that would actually mourn him when he died.

**********

Dean was kind of surprised how quickly it became second nature for him to look after Castiel. He made a point to check in with him every night, and once every couple of days he had Castiel join them for a meal. 

Granted, it wasn’t much – it was nothing like how he’d taken care of Sam his whole life – but considering the recipient this time was an angel, just reminding him to eat was pretty significant. He had a feeling Cas didn’t eat unless Dean was making him do it. It wasn’t like Castiel had money, and he wasn’t the type to dabble in petty larceny to satisfy the munchies.

As Dean was pulling out his cell phone to text Castiel to join them for dinner one day, Sam snickered. “You can’t be a big brother to someone thousands of years older than you,” he teased. They were making their way across a parking lot toward a restaurant.

“Bite me, bitch,” Dean countered as he typed. “Not like his _actual_ big brothers are going to look after him.”

Sam went quiet, because that wasn’t funny for being so miserably true.

Dean had barely closed up his phone when Castiel appeared beside him. Dean was in mid-stride, and Castiel tried to fall in step next to him and land at the same time. Apparently for a falling angel, that was the epitome of walking and chewing gum at the same time. He staggered into Dean. Dean stumbled under the sudden weight, and for a second Castiel was throwing out his arms looking for purchase, and Dean was grabbing on to him to make sure he didn’t take a header. From the look in Castiel’s eyes, Dean wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised by his graceless fumble.

“Whoa, hey,” Dean pushed Castiel back on his feet and eyed him. “Easy there, tiger.”

Sam had stopped, turned to watch them both with that furrow of wounded puppy on his brow.

“Dean, I… I apologize.” Either he didn’t realize he was still holding on to Dean, or he wasn’t sure he could stand on his own without swaying.

Now that Dean had more than a second to look, he didn’t like what he saw. Castiel was panting slightly and his face was ashen. Castiel hadn’t been looking so great lately, but right now he looked like certifiable shit.

“What’s going on, Cas?” he asked lowly, squeezing the upper arms still in his grasp to emphasis his question.

“I… I was in Israel.”

Dean’s eyebrows rose.

“I think…” Castiel took a steadying breath, “perhaps the distance between there and here was too ambitious to undertake all at once.”

Dean shot a look toward Sam, worried and not afraid to show it. Castiel used to flit around the world twice in a millisecond without batting an eye. Now he looked like refried shit for one jaunt between Israel and America.

“You got roaming issues now?”

Castiel looked at Dean, puzzled.

Dean shook his head and let Castiel’s shoulders go. “Just… if international’s gotten hard for you…” when Castiel glowered at him, Dean amended quickly, “just… keep to the continental US from now on, okay?”

“Why?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Geez… so at least if you get stuck down here, you’ll be somewhere that we can get in the car and come get you.”

Castiel’s indignation vanished and he stared at Dean a second, openly amazed that Dean would limit the angel’s flying only in order to be certain they could be reunited if his wings failed him. Dean scowled at what that suggested… that none of his brothers or sisters ever gave two shits enough about Cas, one solitary angel, to make him a priority. Like this was the first time he mattered to anyone. As if all he’d ever been was a toy soldier in God’s big game of Risk.

“You hungry?” Dean asked, because it was that or maybe say something touchy-feely because fuck if everyone, even angels, should hear that they were worth the worry.

Castiel let go of Dean and stood back, considering the state of his vessel. He slowly nodded. “Yes, I’m hungry.”

At least he was getting to know the signs now.

“Come on, then… dinner’s on us.”

Sam snorted. “It’s always on us.”

Dean flicked Sam on the back of the head from a pace behind him, Castiel at his side. “Yeah, and when you start smiting shit left and right like a boss, you’ll eat free, too.” That was what he wanted Castiel to hear, anyway. The last thing he needed was a guilt trip about mooching off the hunters; Dean wouldn’t put it past Castiel to just stop eating all together as a solution.

When they were seated and the waitress handed them their menus, Castiel set to studying the choices with razor sharp attention. He was familiar enough with several foods to have some preferences now, and Dean had been paying attention. Cas was a carbs and starch fiend, like some athlete carbo-loading before a big game. Breads, pasta, potatoes… high energy foods with a lot of bang for the buck. Dean was happy to see several options that fit the bill on the menu.

The waitress was back with their drinks a few minutes later and asked, “So, what can I get you boys?”

“Chicken salad with soup for me,” Sam answered.

“Wussy!” Dean coughed into his hand, earning him a kick in the shin. Dean cleared his throat. “I’ll have the bacon cheeseburger with fries.”

“All right, and you, sugar?” 

Dean shook his head… why did Castiel always get pegged for ‘sugar’ by waitstaff now that he interacted with them regularly? ‘Awkward’ maybe, ‘sugar’ hardly. They ought to see him wield that angel sword of his… they wouldn’t be nicknaming him ‘sugar’ after that.

Castiel hesitated. “I will have the pasta bread bowl.” When he stopped talking, it was noticeably abrupt. Dean knew what that meant. Cas was actually hungier than just one order would handle, but he felt uncomfortable asking for more than a typical human would take (it took Dean losing two orders of fries to Castiel’s wandering hands to work out that pattern).

As Castiel was passing over his menu, Dean chimed in, “Make that two cheeseburgers with fries.” He flashed her a smile. “We’re a hungry bunch.”

“Sure thing,” she scribbled the order down and left.

“So,” Sam began once she was out of earshot, “you take care of that hellhound pack we told you about yesterday?”

Castiel nodded. “They have been eradicated.”

“Good,” Dean shivered. “Man, I hate those things.”

“It was an unusual sight to see so many at once,” Castiel noted. “Packs tend to be no larger than three or four animals. They are too savage and prone to turning on each other in any greater concentration.”

Sam slurped some coke through his straw. “So, how many were there? I mean, we figured a lot, given all the attacks in town, but hard to do a head count on invisible animals.”

“Thirty.”

Dean jerked. “Fuck… man, I’m glad we didn’t stick around for that one.”

Castiel considered Dean with far too gentle an eye, then asked, “Do you two have the next task for me?”

“Nothing so far,” Sam answered. “We’ve run into a dry spell on the Lucifer’s greatest hits front.”

“Which, all things considered, isn’t a bad thing,” Dean said.

Castiel frowned. “Lucifer is still out there. We must find a way to destroy him swiftly.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dean drawled, “I don’t see why we couldn’t make it last, make him suffer a little.” Dean’s hands twitched, suddenly eager for the feel of a scalpel between his fingers, and he dropped his hands under the table before Sam could see the Hell-conditioned response.

Sam missed the instinctive reach for the tools of torture, but Castiel didn’t. He looked quickly over at Dean, doing that ‘look into your soul and rearrange the furniture while I’m there’ stare, then he said carefully, “I would prefer that his death be quick.”

“Really?” Dean snapped back. “After everything he’s done, you’d be that kind to him?”

“He is still my brother,” Castiel said softly, averting his eyes.

Dean went stock-still. Castiel and the Devil were so different, it was easy to forget that they were family.

Sam interjected diplomatically, “I think we could all settle for just finding a way to kill him, period. So, any luck on the God front?”

Dean scoffed and took a drink from his glass. Sam was the only one who ever genuinely asked about Castiel’s search for God… because he was the only one between them who seriously thought it had a snowball’s chance in Hell of panning out. Dean thought it was a cosmic waste of time. Castiel seemed to appreciate Sam’s honest interest.

“No… I have been meticulous in my efforts to locate Him… but I’ve failed so far.”

Conversation stopped when the waitress came back with their food. Dean placed the extra burger and fries on the table in front of Cas’s pasta bowl. The angel regarded the additional food hungrily while he set to devouring the pasta dish in front of him. And Dean used to think Sam was a bottomless pit when he was a teenager… Castiel put the kid to shame.

“Since we’re kind of at a loss, Dean and I were going to head up to Bobby’s,” Sam reported.

“Want to tag along?” Dean asked on impulse.

Castiel hesitated. “I don’t know that Bobby Singer would appreciate my presence. I am not his favorite person at the moment.”

“He’s pissed about being in a wheelchair, but that isn’t your fault,” Dean said firmly. “You can’t do what you can’t do.”

Sam gave him a ‘that made no sense’ look… one soon mirrored by Castiel.

“He’ll get over it.”

“Paraplegia?” Castiel asked with a tilt of his head.

“No, doofus. Putting it all on you. He just needs to see that you’re still a huge asset in this war… and that _he’s_ just as useful as he was before the wheels.”

Castiel looked reluctantly touched.

Sam smiled. “Aw, Dean, that was so… heartwarming.”

“Oh, screw you,” Dean threw a fry at him. Sam threw it back, and Dean’s hands came up in a defensive shield. The fry bounced off Dean’s arm and landed with a plop in Castiel’s pasta.

“Oh, shit… sorry, Cas,” Sam said.

Castiel considered the foreign fry in his noodles a moment, reached in and picked it up carefully between thumb and forefinger… then he flicked it back across the table at Sam. It hit him square on the forehead, leaving a smear of sauce between his eyebrows.

For a second, Sam just blinked in shock.

Dean burst out laughing. That got Sam cracking up, too… though not nearly as much as Dean was busting a gut.

“That was _awesome_ , Cas!” Dean threw an arm over the angel’s shoulders, “Holy shit, did you see the look on his face?”

Sam wiped off the sauce with a napkin. “I think this is incontrovertible proof that you’ve totally corrupted an angel of the lord.”

“That’s right, Sammy… I’m that good,” Dean let go of Castiel’s shoulders and gave him a playful nudge. “Stick around, we’ll make a Winchester of you yet, Cas.”

Castiel’s lips curled in a faint smile. He needed to work on it, though, because it looked kind of bittersweet.

**********

His journey back from Israel had taken a great deal out him. When the Winchesters offered him a ride in their car after dinner, Castiel barely hesitated before he accepted. He’d grown oddly accustomed to the ponderous mode of transportation. At times it was claustrophobic and maddeningly slow, but since the draining of his grace, Castiel had a new appreciation for the vehicle. It might get him there days after he might have reached his destination himself, but surrendering that expediency allowed him rest without abandoning the notion of motion. He was ‘taking a break’, yes, but he wasn’t doing nothing. They were on their way to the next battle.

Castiel leaned back against the seat in the rear of the car and watched the brothers bicker about the choice of music. Sam complained of tiring of the same rock music over and over. Dean insisted they couldn’t ride into the battle of the Apocalypse to Six Pence. That seemed to be some manner of insult, from the way Sam reacted. Castiel didn’t understand half of what they said, but for once he didn’t let it trouble him. He slid down in the seat until the back of his head rested on the seatback. There was a warm sense of relaxation when he got to stop holding his own head up. He had to crack a half-smile at that… Castiel, angel of the Lord, who had pulled Dean Winchester from Hell, enjoying the freedom of not having to bear the burden of his own head’s weight. If Uriel were alive, he’d be shaking the heavens with his laughter.

It was growing dark outside the car’s windows, and Dean was attempting to drag him into the music war happening in the front seat. “Cas is on my side, so that’s two to one.”

“What? Oh, come on, like he even knows who Zeppelin is, and since when was the music selection a democratic process?”

“Since Cas is on my side… isn’t that right, Cas?”

Whatever small victory Dean was trying to secure, Castiel was content to give it to him. “Of course, Dean.” He hoped his show of support would end the argument and they could both stop talking so loudly.

Dean made a triumphant noise and Sam just groaned. “You don’t have to side with Dean just because...”

“Because what?” Dean quipped. “Go on, finish that sentence, Sammy. I dare you. Don’t worry about offending the angel in the backseat or anything.”

Sam bit his lip.

Castiel sighed, eager to end the discussion. “I would like a Zeppelin.”

Sam threw up his hands in disgust. Dean just barked out a laugh. “You heard him, Sammy, angel wants a Zeppelin. And a Zeppelin you will get, my friend.” Dean found the tape and soon music replaced the brothers’ voices.

Castiel sank into the seat, as if he’d turned boneless. It was nice. It felt a bit dissociative… like he’d accidentally fallen into a meditative trance. The brothers were right in front of him, and yet somehow they seemed very far away. The music filled the car, but little by little the sound faded into some unseen distance. For a while he seemed to float, neither part of his grace nor his vessel. It was something else, ethereal, and the shattered one was not part of it.

Castiel reveled in the feeling… he knew, intellectually, that the shattered one remained, but in this hazy fugue, it felt like it was gone. He was free. Death could not find him now, in this state. It was a lie he could almost believe here.

The black outside began to steal inside, and the Winchesters slowly began to fade into darkness. It should have been frightening, but Castiel was not afraid. He let the black roll in and fill up the car. It drowned out the music and left him numb to his vessel. He wasn’t even Castiel now… just a drifter. A mote in blackness. The anonymity and insignificance was comforting.

Then he was no longer in the car. He was on a dock, water glinting prettily in the sunlight. Castiel looked down at his side, expecting Dean.

That’s when he realized…

“This is a dream.”

He’d been inside a dream before, but never his own. It was disorienting. It also meant he’d fallen asleep. He didn’t know he even knew how to do that. It was strange to know he was in two places… one being the backseat of the Impala, the other being here, overlooking a placid lake. For a second, the dichotomy panicked him, then the sensation bled away and he was content. Here was a world where no one was hunting him, where he had no war to win.

He was on the cusp of attempting to enjoy it when suddenly the water turned black and a cold breeze gusted against his coat. He felt, sensed, _knew_... he didn’t need to look to know what had joined his dreamscape.

“I gotta say, little brother, I didn’t think you had _this_ in you.”

Castiel turned sharply and there stood Lucifer, hands in his pockets and regarding Castiel with a keen eye and cocked head. He looked fascinated and disgusted all at once.

“Lucifer.”

Lucifer’s lips twitched in a cold smile. “Dreaming now, Castiel? How _human_ of you. Of course, _that_ definitely isn’t human.” He jerked his chin in the direction of Castiel’s chest.

Castiel looked down and gaped. He could see through his clothes, through the flesh and bone of his vessel, straight through to the burning white light of his grace. Crowded against his own light was the balled up shattered one, shining at its own intensity, shimmering to its own rhythm. It shifted and for half a second it had a face, miniature hands, tucked legs, and a curved back… for a heartbeat, it was a human fetus.

Lucifer scoffed. “Wow… really, Castiel? You’ve gone that native?” Lucifer moseyed closer. Castiel took a step back… he wanted to take another, but his heel went off the edge of the dock and he nearly went over into the water. It had looked peaceful a second ago, but now he feared what lurked beneath the black surface.

Lucifer, for his part, didn’t make any aggressive moves against him. He just ambled closer and peered at the shattered one, on display inside Castiel for all to see. Castiel flinched away and tried to cover himself and the shattered one with his arms. Castiel might begrudge the shattered one existence, but nothing deserved Lucifer’s gaze.

Lucifer lifted his eyebrows at the gesture, then stood back a pace. “So… you’re in trouble. Fallen shattered angel… no one’s going to come to your rescue when that thing’s ready to separate. None of the other angels will even touch you… except to kill you.”

“I’m aware of my situation.”

“Oh, I’ll bet you are. Makes you wonder, though, doesn’t it? I mean, why would our Father do this to you _now_? Seems cruel, don’t you think?”

Castiel did, and had, but he would never admit to sharing doubts with Lucifer.

“You think the others found a way to do this to you?”

Castiel blinked. “You mean… the other angels?”

Lucifer nodded. “Effective way to eliminate you, isn’t it? Maybe they can’t get a hold of you to do it themselves, but in due time, that shattered one will do it for them.”

Castiel hadn’t considered that possibility. He didn’t want to believe his brothers and sisters would do such a thing to one of their own…

Then again, there stood Lucifer, the angel cast down to Hell by his own brother, Michael. It suddenly didn’t seem so unfathomable. And Castiel felt heartsick at the thought.

“So, tell me, Castiel… how’s it feel knowing you’re going to die?”

“Unjust,” Castiel mumbled.

Lucifer snorted. “Preaching to the choir, little brother. I know exactly how you feel.”

Castiel wanted to protest that he couldn’t, but right now he wasn’t so certain.

“I can help you, you know,” Lucifer said softly, voice all silver and honey.

Castiel’s head jerked up. “What?”

Lucifer gestured toward Castiel’s chest. “Our righteous and loving brothers and sisters might have abandoned you – _us_ – but I can help you. I can save you.”

Castiel didn’t know what to say.

Lucifer smiled. “We’re a lot alike, Castiel. Misunderstood. Mistreated. Cast aside. Wanted dead for daring to question. It doesn’t have to be that way. Not for us. You miss the others. I know you do. I miss them, too. Even when they hate me, I miss them. Even when I have to tear them down, I miss them. We weren’t built to be alone. But you and I don’t have to be. Wouldn’t it be comforting to be with a brother again?”

It would. Heaven help Castiel, but it would.

“I’ll give you what you need… when the time comes, you can have a part of my grace to complete the separation. You don’t have to die, Castiel. You can live, and we will stand together. You, me, and the little one.”

For a moment it was tempting… but then reason reared its head and Castiel stood his ground. “No.”

“No?”

“I can well imagine the horror that would be born of an angel created out of your twisted grace. I will not endanger humanity by allowing that to happen. You are enough of a threat without permitting another one like you to come into existence.”

“Don’t think much of your good influence on the little guy, do you?”

Castiel narrowed his eyes. “I’m not stupid, Lucifer. You are an archangel. My grace would drown in yours.”

Lucifer gave a ‘true enough’ shrug and eyed Castiel. “So you’ll just what… die?”

“If that is His will.”

Lucifer cackled. “Oh, Castiel, listen to yourself! His will? You think He even cares anymore? He gave up on this planet long ago. But He was wrong… the world deserves to be saved. All it needs is a good delousing.”

“Humanity is not the plague you think it is.”

“Isn’t it, though? Impudent little cockroaches who dare to flaunt the mercy He gave them?” Lucifer stopped and cocked his head at Castiel. “You’re fond of them, aren’t you?”

Castiel said nothing.

It didn’t matter. Lucifer saw through him as easily as Castiel peered into Dean’s inner thoughts.

“Or one of them, at least. I hope he’s worth it.”

“He is.”

“We’ll see if you still think so when your grace is being torn in half.” Lucifer moved a step back. “The offer stands, Castiel. When the pain is too much to bear, and the other angels won’t hear your cries, I’ll be there.”

“I will not call for you.”

A slow, wicked grin spread over his face. “We’ll see.”

“Cas… Cas…?”

Castiel startled at a sense of falling and suddenly he was back in the Impala. Dean was leaning over the front seat, shaking him.

“What…?”

“Dude, you were _sleeping_. And having a nightmare, from the looks of it.” Dean’s hand on his shoulder turned gentle. Concern laced his voice as he asked, “Since when did you start sleeping?”

Castiel frowned and pushed up from his slouched position in the seat. “That was the first time.” It had started out pleasant, but all in all Castiel could not say he enjoyed the experience as a whole.

Dean regarded him quietly in the darkness. When Castiel gave him a questioning look, Dean sighed. “Well, we’ve stopped for the night. Sam’s getting us a room.” Dean’s eyes shuttered and he pursed his lips. “If you need to sleep, you can have the other side of my bed. Trust me, you don’t want to bunk up with Sam… bastard kicks in his sleep.”

Right then, sleep was the last thing Castiel wanted to do. “No, thank you. I will go.”

“Okay.” Dean’s hand slipped away. “Hey… what were you dreaming about?”

Castiel didn’t know how to answer… so he didn’t. He shook out his wings and fled the car without a word.

**********

“What is _he_ doing here?” Bobby asked with all the warmth of a grizzly bear as he sat in his wheelchair and looked out the window into the backyard.

Sam glanced up from the ancient tome he was reading and looked outside… though he knew what he’d find. Dean was leaning against the Impala, nursing a beer. Castiel was standing next to him, that creepy close that he only did with Dean (to the point that Dean had actually given up trying to get him to back off, so the two always looked a hair’s breadth away from embracing).

“He’s…. helping,” Sam offered lamely.

Bobby snorted. “If he wants to help, shouldn’t he be off finding us something to use against the Devil instead of watching Dean drown himself in booze?”

Sam frowned uncomfortably. “Lay off him, Bobby.”

That earned him a scowl from the old hunter. “Lay off him? Angel won’t get me up out of this chair and you want me to mollycoddle him?”

“I think he’d heal you if he could. He’s… going through a rough time. He hasn’t said so, but Dean and I think he’s… falling.”

Bobby turned his chair around to face Sam, suddenly attentive. “What do you mean?” That was tactician Bobby Singer, assessing their fighting fitness.

“He’s been losing his powers. Just a little at a time, but… he has to eat now. He can’t fly as far as he used to. He sleeps.” Sam trailed off, feeling somehow traitorous for telling anyone about the angel’s deterioration. Having the angel around so much of late had given Sam a chance to know him better, and he knew two things without doubt: 1) Castiel wanted to do the right thing for humanity, and 2) Castiel was painfully loyal to Dean. That was really all it took to win over Sam Winchester.

At the protracted silence, Sam glanced up and found Bobby staring hard at him. “And you think that’s an angel falling?” Bobby asked pointedly.

“Well, yeah… what else could it be?”

Bobby looked constipated. “I don’t know. I’d hardly call myself an angel expert, but after that mess with Anna Milton last year, I did some digging on fallen angels. I’ve never read anything about an angel falling being anything less than a comet plummeting to Earth deal.” Bobby rolled toward the table to dig around for a book. “Nothing in the literature about them just sort of sinking into being human like you’re describing.”

Sam frowned. “Well, if he’s not falling, then what’s wrong with him?”

Bobby shrugged. “Beats me… but maybe that angel’s not being honest with you.”

Sam stiffened at the notion of deceit. He’d traveled and worked with Castiel enough to feel the need to speak in his defense. “To be fair, we haven’t actually questioned him about it. We’ve been a little busy. Castiel’s been hanging around a lot lately, and as soon as we find something, a monster or a demon or whatever, he’s on it the second we say the word. He’s gone into angel Rambo mode or something… frankly, Bobby, it’s kind of scary.”

“Might be you two forgot what he is, then,” Bobby noted. “In case you hadn’t noticed, that angel’s always _been_ scary. That’s angels.”

Sam had to concede that point. The first time he stood in front of Castiel and really looked at him, it sure as hell wasn’t a slim Midwestern boy he saw. Or that was what he _saw_ , but it wasn’t what he _felt_. Castiel had a way of taking up a whole room without moving a muscle of Jimmy Novak’s lean body. Truthfully, Sam didn’t know how Dean could stand toe-to-toe with that and have those endless staring contests with the angel without feeling cowed.

“Ah, here,” Bobby unearthed a dusty old book with a cracked leather cover and held it out. “This had the most detail about angels falling… might be you can dig up some more to it after this, too, I just got sidetracked by that little Apocalypse thing.”

Sam took the book. “Yeah, sure.” He hefted the big book and frowned. He and his brother had just assumed Castiel’s symptoms were the signs of an angel slipping from Heaven’s reach. They’d brought him further into their fold the farther he fell from Heaven. 

If Castiel wasn’t falling, what was happening to him?

**********

“You better double that,” Dean told Bobby as the older hunter put in a delivery order for two pizzas. Sam was in the library with his nose buried in a book (typical). Castiel was outside, warding the property against his own family.

Bobby covered the phone with his hand. “What’s that?”

“Cas eats now, and he can put food away like you would not believe.”

“Coming from you, that’s disturbing.”

“Tell me about it… oh, and order breadsticks.”

Bobby huffed but did as asked. When he hung up, Bobby turned his chair around and said, “All right, that’s twenty minutes… enough time to get this power pow-wow started. Go round up your brother and your angel.”

Dragging Sam away from his musty old book was easier than getting Castiel to come inside. He was in the middle of painting a sigil on a fencepost by the front gate, and he absolutely refused to move no matter how much Dean yelled at him from the porch. Only when he was finished did he turn to regard Dean from across the yard…

… then suddenly he was standing right next to him.

Dean flinched. “Jesus, Cas!” Dean’s hand went to his chest. “You’re trying to give me a heart attack, aren’t you?” Before Castiel could answer, Dean glanced down at the angel’s hands. They were covered in blood. “Uh… aren’t you going to mojo that?”

Castiel looked down at his hands, red fingers glistening in the light from Bobby’s front door. “I am… trying. It seems to be taking a little longer than normal.”

“Oh for…” Dean grabbed Castiel by the arm and hauled him into the house toward the kitchen. Sam came half out of his seat when he saw the blood, but Dean waved him off with a gruff, “It’s Castiel’s.” And how fucked up was it that just knowing Cas was the one bleeding was enough to have the troops stand down?

Dean led Cas to the sink, turned on the water, and pushed up Castiel’s sleeves. He hissed at the sight of both wrists slit neatly down the middle. The same cuts on a human would have been called a suicide attempt (and probably a successful one at that). “Damnit.”

“It won’t harm me,” Castiel said gently. 

Dean startled at how close and soft the angel’s voice was to his ear. He glanced into Castiel’s face and frowned. “I might feel better about that if you weren’t still bleeding. Come here.” He ran Castiel’s wrists under cold water to clean them off, then grabbed one of Bobby’s hand towels. “Hey!” Bobby started to protest, but in the next second Dean had the cloth wrapped around Castiel’s wrists, holding them both tight around the cuts, effectively making a set a cloth handcuffs out of the towel.

“You can’t just slice yourself up like this,” Dean scolded.

“I can… and I needed the blood for the wards.”

Dean seethed. “Listen, birdbrain, you can’t do things like you used to! You have to be careful, you gotta…” Dean fumed quietly, clamping down harder on Castiel’s wrists in his frustration. Part of him wanted to make Castiel flinch, to make him feel punishment for making Dean worry. Of course, no human grip could make an angel flinch… not even a falling one.

“That’s my brother’s emotionally stunted way of saying he cares,” Sam chimed in.

Dean glowered over at Sam then focused his eyes on the bloody towel around Castiel’s wrists. He could feel Castiel staring at him. Eventually, Castiel said lowly, “Thank you, Dean.” When Dean spared a glance up into his eyes, Castiel looked down at his hands. “You can take that off now.”

Dean peeled back one side to peek at the skin underneath and found the gash gone. All that remained was a tender pink line on white skin.

Dean grunted and tossed the bloody towel on the counter.

By then, the pizza man had arrived, and Sam went out to meet him at the gate and pay for their dinner (he’d probably shit himself when he realized how much food he was buying). He came back balancing an impressive stack of pizza boxes with a large sack of breadsticks on top. While the hunters dove into a box to pluck out slices, Dean passed an entire box and the breadsticks over to Castiel.

“All right, Power Puffs,” Bobby began, “put on your thinking caps and tell me… what can kill Lucifer?”

“God,” Castiel answered simply around a bite of pepperoni and sausage pizza.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, since he’s been No-Show Jones for this whole shindig, let’s count him out for now.”

Castiel cast a disapproving look at Dean.

“So what else?” Bobby pressed, not interested in hearing another lecture about faith.

“The Colt?” Sam suggested.

All eyes turned to Castiel. The angel swallowed the bite he had in his mouth and frowned. “I don’t think so. It was a weapon forged by human hands to defeat the dark creatures of Hell…”

“Sounds like it’d be perfect,” Dean said.

“But Lucifer is not a creature of Hell, for all that he rules them. He is an archangel.”

“Still?” Sam asked. “I mean… didn’t he fall?”

Castiel paused, getting that look on his face like he wasn’t sure how to explain something to the puny humans with the limited English language at his disposal. “There is more than one manner in which an angel can ‘fall’… it’s hard to explain, because English uses the same word for all of them, which is greatly misleading. In Enochian, the variations of falling have different words that are far more descriptive and accurate.

“There is the excising of grace, as Anael did. That method of falling transforms an angel into a human – and in Anael’s case, allowed her to be born a human. It strips an angel of all its Heavenly gifts, though a ghost of their former self remains, like a brand on the soul.

“But there is a type of falling – and far more common – where an angel is banished, outcast, but chooses not to remove its grace. It will still have all the powers it did before it was cast out, but it can no longer hear the Host or enter Heaven.”

“So I’m guessing Lucy went the second route,” Dean grumbled.

Castiel gave Dean a strange look for the nickname, then he nodded. “Lucifer never wished to abdicate his status as an archangel… nor the powers that come with it.”

Sam looked way too thoughtful, then he reached for a second slice of pizza. “Okay, so maybe what we should be asking is ‘what can kill an archangel’?”

Castiel opened his mouth to speak.

Dean held up a finger and went, “Ah! Don’t say ‘God’.”

Castiel snapped his jaw shut and narrowed his eyes. “Yes, but I was going to say another archangel.”

“Great, because we have one of those on speed dial,” Bobby snorted.

Dean and Sam were looking at one another uncomfortably, each waiting for the other to say it. Sam broke first. “Do you think… Gabriel…?”

Castiel stilled.

“I don’t know… our last attempt to convince him to join our little band of brothers didn’t do anything but give you genital herpes and me a bullet in the back,” Dean groused.

Bobby’s eyes widened. “Run all that by me again? You boys been carousing with an archangel while I wasn’t looking? And just what the _hell_ were _you_ doing with him, Sam?”

“Nothing! None of it was real! Or it _was_ , but it wasn’t permanent, just… It’s a really long story,” Sam groaned. “But the highlights are that Gabriel’s around, he’s a dick, and he’s got zero interest in taking sides.”

“Unless you call trying to strong-arm us into saying yes to Michael and Lucifer ‘taking a side’, just the _wrong one_.”

“Michael’s sword…” Castiel mused.

Dean looked over at him and frowned. “Cas, I really hope you’re not about to suggest I say ‘yes’.”

“Of course not, but… it’s not necessarily the archangel that can kill another archangel. Technically, it is the archangel’s blade.”

Dean perked up. “Yeah? So, if we can get our hands on an archangel’s sword, we could use it against Lucifer?”

“I wish it were that simple,” Castiel muttered as he thought it through. “But as the vessel, you are called the Michael Sword for a reason… in that, it is not merely a matter of your language being limited. Only an archangel can wield an archangel’s sword.”

“So then you’re saying yours wouldn’t work?” Dean asked.

Castiel flicked his arm to the side, a gesture so casual like he was merely adjusting his coat, and the silver blade slipped down from his sleeve as if it had been tucked up inside it the whole time… though Dean knew damn well it hadn’t been there when he was manhandling Cas around to tend to his wrists.

Castiel laid the blade on the table, like an exhibit in a trial, and said, “An angel’s blade is matched to its grace. The power of my blade is proportionate to the strength of my grace.” He ghosted a hand over the weapon, familiar like the way Dean’s hands knew his favorite gun or the steering wheel of the Impala. “This is well-matched for any beast of the pit. It can…” Castiel winced, “it is capable of slaying angels of a caste equal to my own as well as any below. But against an archangel, this would be a nuisance at best.”

“And I’m guessing if an angel tried to use a blade beyond his power level…” Sam began.

“It would be fatal. The power in the blade would overwhelm the angel holding it.”

Dean scowled. “Well, great… so we need Michael’s sword to kill Lucifer, but the only way any of us could hold Michael’s sword without dying is if I become the Michael Sword? That really defeats the whole ‘fuck you, destiny’ motif we’re rocking, doesn’t it?”

While Dean was ranting, Castiel was thinking. Sam noticed. “Cas?”

At Dean’s questioning glance, Castiel took in a breath. “I was wondering how long it would take to kill me if I tried to wield Michael’s sword in order to slay Lucifer.”

“You mean before you…” Sam made some vague gestures with his hands.

Castiel got it and nodded. “Given the discrepancy in power, I suspect I would explode.” He considered that further for a second. “It would probably be fairly spectacular.”

“Oh yes, sounds like a regular Fourth of July.” Dean threw up his hands. “Listen up, Kamikaze Cas… we’re not going with a plan where you end up dead.”

Castiel looked somberly at Dean. “My death may be unavoidable.”

“Wow, way to look on the bright side. And I thought you were done believing that fate bullshit? You’re not _dying_ , dumbass; I won’t let you.”

“Not that it matters,” Bobby grumbled, “how in the hell are we supposed to get hold of an archangel’s sword?”

Sam looked toward Castiel expectantly.

Castiel mulled it over a second. “Perhaps, in this instance, Gabriel is our best chance.”

“The guy who wants the Lucy-Mike showdown to happen yesterday? The same guy who beat the shit out of you?” Dean sneered. “If that’s our best hope, we are so screwed.”

“His is the only archangel blade within reach on the entire planet,” Castiel countered. “If we can somehow take it from him, and if I can handle it long enough to strike with it, I believe I can lure Lucifer into a trap.”

“Oh, really… what makes you think that?”

Castiel didn’t answer right away. “We must have the sword first… without it, how I mean to trap Lucifer does not matter.”

The table fell into a momentary silence.

“What about Raphael?” Dean asked, hesitantly because the last time they’d seen that particular ray of sunshine, Raphael had vowed to destroy Castiel next time they met. Again. Destroy him _again_.

Castiel shook his head. “Raphael is still commander of a powerful army of Heaven. Gabriel is powerful as well, but he is unaided. It is a small advantage, but the best we can expect for such a foolhardy endeavor.”

“You and me were able to corral Raphael and have a chat with him without turning into piles of ash,” Dean pointed out. Sam blinked and Bobby grumbled something about idiots getting in over their heads.

“We trapped him only to question him about God’s whereabouts. We did not present as a real threat to Raphael, despite your warning to deep-fry him.” Castiel almost smirked. “Had we truly tried, we could not have gotten close enough to him to do it without being smote first. 

“Besides which, angels object very strongly to being confined. I doubt Raphael would be so docile the next time we encountered him.”

“ _Docile_?” Dean squawked. “You call shutting down power in the entire eastern seaboard docile?”

“Yes.”

Sam tossed in soberly, “You know, hate to be the downer here, but we ‘confined’ Gabriel, too.”

Castiel had only a stilted half-shrug in response. “True… but you did free him. It might make him hesitate – however briefly – to kill you.”

For a moment, silence filled the room. Then Bobby heaved a sigh. “Well, balls… sounds like a truly shitty plan, but at least it’s _something_. First thing tomorrow, we start working on a way to steal a sword from an archangel and not get our asses fried in the process.”

A half-ass plan in place and morale pretty dismal, the group turned to finishing dinner. The three hunters demolished a pizza and a half between them, while Castiel ate two entire pizzas and all the breadsticks on his own. Bobby seemed torn between sickened and impressed.

When the boxes were cleared away and the leftovers stuffed in the fridge, Dean turned to Cas. “You, uh… you sleeping tonight?”

Castiel considered a moment. “Maybe… but I am going to draw some sigils on the walls for protection over dreams first.”

“Angel dream catcher, huh? All right, well… you get tired, crash on the couch or with me, just keep it quiet… okay?”

“I will… goodnight, Dean.”

**********

Not surprisingly, the Winchesters didn’t get much opportunity to help Bobby research a way to steal an archangel’s blade. One of Bobby’s contacts called in with a report of a plague of locusts in Kansas… only instead of crops, this plague was stripping the flesh from people’s bones right where they stood in the streets. It definitely had the work of the Devil written all over it. Sam and Dean threw their stuff in the car and prepared to head out within an hour of hearing the news. Bobby promised to stay on top of the archangel blade business.

While the boys were piling into the Impala, Dean turned to Castiel. The angel had been watching it all with an irksome lack of immediacy. Of course, the rush to get someplace was probably pointless to a being that could transport there in the blink of an eye.

“You going to meet us there?” Dean asked.

Castiel hesitated only a half-second. “No… while I abhor the lives being lost to this latest tactic of Lucifer’s… there is something far more urgent I must do.”

Dean scowled, looked on the verge of a lecture, then pinched his lips and said nothing even resembling a lecture. “Fine. We’ll check in later.” Before the angel could vanish, Dean quickly added, “Keep it continental!”

Without responding, Castiel took wing and disappeared.

**********

Bearing in mind his older brother’s volatile temper and penchant for pranks against humans, Castiel chose to summon him while standing in the middle of Death Valley. The nearest human being was a comforting several miles away, so at least they would be safe.

That didn’t mean that Castiel was.

“Gabriel… Gabriel, it is Castiel. I would speak with you.” Castiel sent up the appeal to the skies, the layers of the earth, traveling out and seeking the archangel’s attention. There was no guarantee he would come. Archangels could be summoned, but not coerced. They appeared when they chose, if they chose to at all.

Part of Castiel (the part that remembered the harsh treatment suffered at the hands of his brother) hoped Gabriel did not answer.

That hope was dashed mere seconds later by the sound of ethereal wings beating against the fabric of the universe.

“Hey, bro.”

Castiel steeled himself and turned to face Gabriel.

The second Castiel had come about, Gabriel’s eyes widened and his eyes raked over Castiel invasively. The sensation of violation was not so very different from the way Lucifer had looked and seen. Castiel could almost feel the archangel’s gaze settle like fire on the shattered one so tightly tucked against his own grace.

Gabriel whistled. “You’re screwed, Castiel.”

“Thank you for that astute observation,” Castiel retorted tersely.

Gabriel chuckled. “You know, most of the time humans are a terrible influence, but you’ve gotten a pretty decent sense of humor hanging out with them.”

“Less twisted than yours.”

Gabriel shrugged. “Eh… I appreciate the sense of the absurd, what can I say? And it’s not like the jackholes I toy with don’t deserve it.” Gabriel stuffed his hands in his pockets and began to stroll a lazy perimeter around Castiel. The predatory behavior was not lost on Castiel. 

“Gotta say, after our last meeting, I didn’t think you’d be calling me down for a chat.” Gabriel’s look turned serious in a millisecond. “I hope you don’t expect me to help you with _that_.” He gestured fleetingly at the shattered one.

If there had been any tiny, miniscule hope that Gabriel might save him, that was snuffed out immediately by the revulsion written plainly on Gabriel’s face. Castiel was dejected, but not surprised. “I have accepted that I am going to die.”

“Hmmm… how existential of you. Do your pet humans know?”

Castiel glowered. “They are not my _pets_.”

“Hey,” Gabriel held up a hand, “I’m not judging… far as pets go, humans are a lot more cuddly than a goldfish.” Gabriel smirked lasciviously. “The women are especially entertaining…” Then Gabriel cocked his head curiously at Castiel. “Or maybe you’re into the men. Which, hey, whatever ruffles your feathers, right, kiddo?”

“Gabriel…”

“And given how little time you have left, you should go all out, Castiel. Experience decadence and iniquity to the fullest while you still can. Defile your favorite human in ways even our Father never imagined… you’d do me proud.”

“ _Gabriel_ … I didn’t summon you for advice on sexual debauchery.”

“Oh… well, shame… I’m a wealth of knowledge. So… why _did_ you summon me?”

“I came to ask for your blade.”

The humor in Gabriel’s expression vanished in an instant. He stopped strolling and stood stock-still, regarding Castiel intently. Then something very nearly like compassion edged into his eyes. He approached Castiel. When his hand came up, Castiel flinched back, but in the next moment Gabriel’s hand was clasped around the back of Castiel’s neck, and no amount of wriggling on Castiel’s part could break the archangel’s hold. Though from the kind look in Gabriel’s eyes, Castiel suspected the touch was meant to be gentle and reassuring. Castiel could never decide if archangels just didn’t know their own strength or if they reveled in abusing it. Father’s first and strongest had ego issues galore.

“Castiel, I… you keep surprising me. I didn’t think you’d ask for that. But… I respect what you’re asking me to do. Really. If it were me, I’d rather it be quick and painless, too. Because dying in agony like that, suffering…”

Castiel realized what Gabriel thought he was requesting. He pushed at Gabriel’s chest (which achieved nothing, but got Gabriel’s attention). “I’m not asking you to kill me, Gabriel.”

The archangel looked confused. “Then what was all that about wanting my blade?”

“Just what I said… I want you to give me your blade.”

Gabriel’s hand fell away. “You’re joking, right?”

“No, I’m not.”

That did it. Gabriel laughed. “Is this some weird way to commit angel suicide? You know you couldn’t actually _use_ my sword. Starting some kind of badass untouchable weapons collection or something?”

“I mean to use it to destroy Lucifer.”

Gabriel’s laughter died abruptly. He frowned at Castiel. “You’re serious.”

“I am.”

“You actually think you could get close enough to him to use it before it turned you into a squashed mosquito?”

“I’m willing to try… as you might say, I have nothing to lose.”

Gabriel’s eyes flickered down to the shattered one, so far along and crowding Castiel’s grace. “At least you’re right about that much.”

“So will you give it to me?”

Gabriel’s eyes met Castiel’s again and they turned hard. Bitter. He stepped back. “No.”

“What does it matter to you if I kill Lucifer? I thought you ‘wanted it to be over’,” Castiel countered.

“Because I refuse to have anything to do with it. I won’t kill my brother. They want to duke it out, fine, but I won’t raise my weapon against my own. I want no part of their fight. Why do you think I _left_?”

Both of them knew that the sins of the blade were the sins of the angel who owned it, regardless of the one holding it when it was used. Murdering Lucifer with Gabriel’s sword would always be remembered as Gabriel murdering Lucifer.

“You were going to kill _me_ ,” Castiel pointed out.

“Out of mercy. And I still will, if you want me to. I hate to think of what you’re going to go through when that thing tries to separate.”

“You’ll kill me, but you won’t help me?” Castiel asked snidely. Perhaps Gabriel was right… he was spending too much time with his humans.

“Last thing the universe needs is more of us,” Gabriel responded with a shrug. “Look at the mess the angels have made already. Nope, you won’t see me adding fuel to the angel fire.”

And in that, at least, Castiel could not blame him.

“Very well,” Castiel said grimly, “then I will find a way to destroy Lucifer without your help.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel snorted, “good luck with that.” Then Gabriel’s expression softened slightly and he canted his head as he regarded his brother. “Goodbye, Castiel.”

It was said as a final farewell. And it likely was. Even if Castiel survived a confrontation with Lucifer, the shattered one would still kill him before the two would probably ever see each other again.

Gabriel had never been Castiel’s favorite, but right now he was the only angel that would deign to speak with him. He was the only member of his family that didn’t want to kill him on sight. For that small mercy, Castiel was grateful. “Goodbye, Gabriel.”

And then Castiel was standing alone in the middle of the desert. The American desert, since Dean had been so adamant about Castiel staying within the continental United States. The thought made Castiel smile sadly to himself.

Even if his brothers no longer cared about him, there were two humans that did.

**********

“Stupid fucking grasshoppers,” Dean groused as he peeled off his jacket, riddled with holes from locusts on steroids trying to chew through to his skin. He held it up to the window, and it looked like a Lite Brite board, what with all the light pouring through the holes. “God damn fucking grasshoppers.”

“Could have been worse,” his brother offered. Sam was peeling out of his own hole-ridden clothes on the other side of the motel room. His jeans were hanging off him by threads, and Dean might have laughed if there weren’t a shitload of little blood spots on Sam’s legs from where the bugs had gotten through and had a go at a Samburger.

“Worse? Ever since that banshee tore up Dad’s old leather jacket – which I’m still not over, by the way – this one was my favorite. Now look at it. It’s indecent now. You could see my nipples through this thing.”

“Yeah, like decency has ever been a priority to you, not to mention wearing a jacket with no shirt on underneath is so 80’s,” Sam quipped as he started to try pulling down his jeans and realized it was easier just to start tearing the few stubborn patches of denim away with his hands.

Dean tossed the jacket in a corner in disgust. He frowned again at Sam’s bloodied legs and went to dig out the first aid kit from his duffle. When Sam saw him coming his way with the hydrogen peroxide, Sam just sighed in defeat and sat down on the bed.

While Dean blotted at Sam’s insect bites with the disinfectant, Sam used the age-old trick of distracting himself from the burning by talking about something else. “Hey, uh… I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Cas.”

“Yeah?” Dean touched a soaked cotton pad to a sizeable bite, making Sam flinch. “What about him?”

“Well… you know how we’ve just been operating under the assumption that the reason he’s been losing all his power is because he’s falling? Ssss!”

Dean blew on the bubbling bite to ease the sting. “Sounds like you’re going to say he isn’t.”

“I was talking to Bobby about it. He doesn’t think that’s really ‘angel falling’ M.O.”

“Because Bobby’s the world’s leading authority on angels,” Dean said gently, switching to Sam’s other leg. “No offense, but I’m going to believe Cas on this one over Bobby.”

“Yeah, but has Castiel ever actually _said_ that he’s falling?”

Dean stopped and looked up at his brother then. “Sure he has.”

“No, he said he was cut off from Heaven. But you heard what he was saying about fallen angels the other day, that a lot of the time they keep their powers, just get booted out of Heaven. So shouldn’t he still be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound just as well as he used to, even if he was fallen?”

Dean scowled and resumed tending to Sam’s injuries. “So if he’s not running out of juice because he’s falling, then what’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know… I’ve been reading up on it in my spare time…”

“Is that the old book you’ve had your nose buried in for days?”

Sam nodded. “But there’s not exactly an Audubon Guidebook to Fallen Angels. The literature I’ve managed to find on the topic is sketchy at best. Think maybe we should ask Castiel? And by ‘we’, I mean you.”

“Why me?”

Sam made a ‘duh’ face. “Because he likes you better.”

Dean pursed his lips. “Don’t you think he’d tell us if something was going on with him?”

“Something _is_ going on with him, and he _hasn’t_ told us.” Sam jerked when one of the bites Dean touched was uncomfortably high on his thigh. “Look, I don’t want to get all up in his personal business. I mean, after all he’s done for us, he’s earned the right to a little privacy, but… but if he’s compromised, then that’s something we _do_ need to know about.”

Dean put the cap back on the peroxide and sat back on his heels. “I’ll think about it.”

“Okay, good… here,” Sam held out his hands for the bottle and cotton pad.

“What?”

“Dude, your back looks like someone walked over you in soccer cleats.”

“Terrific,” Dean grumbled as he shucked out of the pathetic remnants of his shirt, then laid face down on his bed so Sam could return the favor of making Dean flinch and hiss.

**********

Castiel was coming to the conclusion that he did not like dreaming. Either they were disturbing or he couldn’t keep Lucifer out of them.

Or both.

“Won’t be long now, Castiel,” Lucifer commented as he came up alongside Castiel on the top of a mountain. It was one Castiel had been to once or twice in the waking world, though in the dream he could not remember which it was, for it seemed to be a strange amalgamation of two. On one side was a snowy vista like the winter-clad view of Tibet, the other a barren landscape like the plains of Africa.

Castiel wanted to move away from Lucifer when he joined him on the mountaintop, but a step to the side would be freefall. Castiel had learned that sometimes, in dreams at least, he could fall like the lowliest of any creature.

So he stood firm and let Lucifer stand elbow to elbow with him… he had no choice.

Lucifer spoke of the shattered one, of course. Castiel didn’t want to look, but he seemed to have little control of his actions in dreams. He glanced down at himself. He wasn’t transparent this time. He seemed human, flesh and bone. But if he was human, he was a deformed one. His jacket and coat were pushed aside, and his white shirt unbuttoned and flung open to expose his chest and belly. Protruding from his chest was a mass of flesh, a parasitic twin yet not. It was attached to Castiel’s chest by its head, any semblance of a face lost inside Castiel’s ribcage, but the body hung from him like an engorged leech, legs and arms curled tight like a kitten tucked up while being carried by the neck by its mother. As he stared down at it in mild horror, the thing move. Arms and legs struggled, pushed against Castiel’s stomach and kicked at him in a newfound disdain for their entanglement.

No… not much longer.

“I don’t appreciate your propensity to state the obvious,” Castiel spat at Lucifer.

“You misjudge me, Castiel… I’m just showing concern.”

“Of course you are. You’re so well known for your concern for others.”

Lucifer frowned. “That’s unfair, don’t you think?”

“Hardly.”

Lucifer regarded him a long moment. “Do you know what was the first thing I did when I took Nick as a vessel?”

“I doubt it was anything pleasant.”

“Well, certainly not for Anthony Garland.” When Castiel looked at him blankly, Lucifer continued, “Anthony Garland was the murderer responsible for the death of Nick’s wife and child. That’s why he let me in, you know. He just wanted the pain to stop. And it has. 

“But Nick didn’t know how much he wanted _revenge_ until I gave it to him. The first thing I did after I took this vessel was find Anthony and make him pay for the deaths of Nick’s wife and daughter. It had nothing to do with me – that was all for Nick.”

Castiel didn’t know what to say to that.

“Now does that seem heartless to you?”

“I suppose it would depend on the manner of Anthony Garland’s death.”

At that, a sly smile tugged at Lucifer’s lips. “Well… I do take pride in my work.”

Suddenly, a body hung suspended in the gray sky over the mountain. It was a man, but anything else about him was lost to the fact he’d been completely skinned. Alive. He was still twitching and jerking, blood dripping from his dark red muscles. Lidless eyes gaped down at the two of them on the peak, his lips removed to give the figure a permanent, gruesome grin.

Castiel didn’t know if his mind supplied that or if Lucifer had. It didn’t really matter. He couldn’t look at it, and he turned his head aside. The shattered one either sensed the horror or sensed Castiel’s, because it began to fight again. Castiel hated the sensation of it moving independently of him.

“Shhh… shhh…” Lucifer cooed. Castiel had a sinking feeling that Lucifer was reaching out to the shattered one, and he jerked away. He nearly went over the edge of the mountain, but when he didn’t he thought maybe it would have been preferable if he had.

Lucifer paid the escape attempt no mind, just kept talking to the shattered one. “Now, now… don’t be afraid, little one. I would never hurt you… that’s for my enemies. And yours.”

Castiel’s arm shot out, shoving Lucifer’s away. “Stop it… don’t talk to it like that.”

“Come on, Castiel… don’t be like that. It’ll just make things awkward once we welcome that little guy into the world.”

“That will never happen.”

“I think it will,” Lucifer smiled slowly. “I don’t think you really understand how much pain you’ll be in when it tries to separate. But that’s all right. I won’t hold it against you when you don’t call for me until you’re writhing in agony. Actually, all things considered, it’ll be fitting. Until then…” Lucifer gave no warning, just shoved Castiel hard.

Castiel went tumbling over the edge and falling into nothingness.

He was still fighting falling when his eyes flew open and he found himself staring up into Dean Winchester’s face. They were not on a mountain, they were in a motel, and Castiel was not falling… he was firmly grounded on a bed.

That proved small comfort as the terror of the dream clung to him. He tried to scramble up out of bed.

“Whoa! Hey, hey, hey,” Dean, sitting next to him, reached out to him and tried to quiet him with a hand on his chest. So like the way Lucifer had reached to touch him. Without thinking, Castiel swatted the hand away.

Dean held his hand out to the side, still hovering close, and Castiel recognized the ‘placate an agitated animal’ posture. That more than anything finally calmed him down. He was an angel, not a frightful beast of the earth.

When he seemed less apt to fight, Dean edged closer. “Hey… it’s okay, it was just a nightmare.”

No, it _wasn’t_. 

“Pretty bad one, huh?” Dean was speaking softly, and Castiel glanced to the side and realized why. The second bed was full of Sam, sleeping soundly, dead to the world. Castiel resented him for making it look so easy and peaceful. The light in the room came from the nightstand lamp, and a digital clock burned into the darkness the glaring green numbers ‘3:12’.

“Don’t worry,” Dean said lowly, “Sam’s asleep. All those bug bites were making it hard for him to fall asleep, so he took a couple of pills.”

Castiel blinked up at Dean, confused. “I don’t remember coming here.”

Dean looked troubled by that. “You showed up a little before midnight… scared the shit out of me, as usual. I forgot you’d know where we were without having to call. You looked pretty wiped out. You said something about kicking it in Nepal, then looked like you were about to fall asleep on your feet. I put you to bed and you were asleep pretty much the second your head hit the pillow.” Dean glowered. “What did I tell you about flitting off to the far ends of the earth?”

“You told me not to,” Castiel returned evenly. He left it at that.

“That’s all you have to say for yourself? That you weren’t supposed to, but you did anyway?”

“You don’t command me, Dean. My search for God is far too important, and it will take me to distant places beyond the reach of your car.”

“Damnit, Cas, you know what that takes out of you.”

“God is not likely to be found in _Kansas_.”

Dean rubbed his face with a hand. “Fine, do whatever you want. See if I care if you get yourself stuck on Mount Everest.”

The dream of the mountaintop came back to Castiel, sharp and distressing, and his ire left him. He imagined being trapped there, no hope of getting back to Dean, and the human’s distraught reaction made more sense suddenly. Just like that, he had a frame of reference for that brand of hopelessness, for being so desperately landlocked, _earthbound_. “I have no desire to cause you to worry,” he said gently. “I’m only trying to save you.”

Dean sagged. “Yeah, I know… but maybe I’m not willing to sacrifice you along the way.”

That he cared that much made Castiel feel much less alone. If only Dean knew that Castiel probably would not live to see the end of this war, either way. “I apologize for worrying you.”

Dean snorted. “Right. Look, it’s not a _command_ , but I would _appreciate it_ if you didn’t wear yourself out to the point that you show up on our doorstep looking like someone out of Night of the Living Dead.”

“I don’t understand that reference.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you don’t.” Dean considered Castiel a moment, eyes growing suspicious. Castiel could not fathom why. Then, before Castiel could really process his intent, Dean leaned forward and rested a hand on Castiel’s forehead. It was shockingly cool and dry against the moisture on Castiel’s brow.

Dean didn’t look happy. “You’re burning up, Cas. Since when do you get fevers?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel answered, his chest achingly tight. He didn’t even know that he had one, but Dean seemed convinced. He was drawing away the covers draped over the angel. Castiel looked down at himself, a scared part of him expecting to see that horrible creature merged with him.

Instead, he saw…

“You removed my clothes.”

“Quit fretting about your precious virtue. It’s not like you’re _naked_ ,” Dean said defensively, though Castiel felt he very nearly was. Jimmy Novak’s boxers seemed little enough to qualify as clothing. “Call me a silly human, but going to bed in a full suit and tie seemed a little too formal. For the record, you didn’t seem to care when I was doing it.” Dean left Castiel’s mostly-naked body exposed as he went to the bathroom. He came back with a wet washcloth, which he laid on Castiel’s bare chest. The chill of it made him gasp and look up at Dean.

“Only feels cold ‘cause you’re so hot,” Dean promised. He sat down next to Castiel again, quietly moving the cloth from the angel’s chest to his forehead, turning it over now and then to expose a freshly cold patch of material. After the shock of the temperature difference abated, the cool cloth was pleasant.

A few minutes in silence let Castiel leave his nightmare behind and really study Dean. The human looked exhausted and preoccupied by something.

“Dean…?”

Dean sighed. “I wanna ask you something, Cas.”

“Very well.”

“Are you falling?”

Castiel went still. He watched Dean closely. There was something tumultuous in his mind concerning the question, and Castiel felt uneasy about it. “I am fallen.”

Dean nodded absently. “So that’s why you’re all…” he waved a hand over Castiel’s prone body. When Castiel merely lifted an eyebrow, Dean continued, “you know, losing your mojo?”

That was not from being fallen… that was because of the shattered one. But he didn’t want to tell Dean about his affliction. The angels could see it the second they looked at him, they saw the death sentence bleeding his grace, and they pitied him and shied away, repulsed. The Winchesters had not turned away in disgust because they could not see, and Castiel wouldn’t tell them and be the one to put that look in their eyes. They were all he had left.

Besides, he knew the Winchesters. If they knew the truth, they would try to save him. They’d turn their efforts from stopping the Apocalypse to trying to save the life of a doomed fallen angel. Castiel would not let that happen… not when there was nothing the humans could do, anyway. Best their focus remain on thwarting Lucifer’s plans.

“It’s complicated,” Castiel answered flatly.

Dean frowned. “Then use small words.”

Castiel did… several small words that said it all. Only it was all in Enochian.

Dean stared at him dumbly a minute, then he scowled. “Whatever.” He was angry. Castiel hated to anger him, but it was (as humans liked to say) the lesser of two evils.

Castiel expected Dean to storm away after that, but he remained seated next to the angel. He took the cloth off his chest and reached up to curl a hand around the back of Castiel’s neck. As Gabriel had done, but there was no steel and veiled threat to Dean’s touch. It was just a gentle, warm curl of flesh against the column of his neck. Castiel wondered at the ways Dean had touched him tonight, so much like the ways Castiel’s own brothers had, but at the same time vastly different.

“That’s better,” Dean said softly. He must be speaking of Castiel’s body temperature. “You feel like going back to sleep?”

Castiel certainly didn’t want to, but he’d come to know that feeling of his consciousness sinking into quicksand that meant he would not be able to fight it. Dean was right… his last flight across the world had been dangerously taxing.

“I’m tired,” Castiel confessed. It was a cruel joke that Castiel could say that and mean it.

Dean just nodded. “I’m going to hit the sack, but you wake me if you start to feel sick, okay?”

Castiel wasn’t sure he’d know what that felt like, but he nodded. “Okay.” He marveled a moment at what this night had made him privy to… Dean was an exemplary caretaker. Surely it was something Sam could have told him, but it was different to be on the receiving end of it and see it and feel it. It was sadly more genuine, more sincere, than any consideration Castiel had ever felt from his siblings in all his existence. For all their bright heat, angels lacked warmth.

Dean set the cloth on the nightstand, then went to the other side of the bed and slipped under the covers. Castiel turned his head to watch him, wondering at the fact that such a primitive, base creature could show more mercy and grace than angels. Why was he the only angel that saw their greatness? Buried in grime it might be, mired in sin and temptations, but it was there. If more angels took the time to see it, there might not be a need for this war.

“Lights, Cas,” Dean grumbled, and Castiel reached up and turned off the lamp. Darkness swallowed them all. It was too much like the darkness he’d fallen into off the mountaintop. Castiel turned on his side to face Dean, just able to see him in the dark. The shattered one shifted inside him. Castiel frowned and pulled up the covers Dean had thrown off him earlier… the humans couldn’t see the shattered one, but Castiel still felt better taking measures to conceal it.

**********

The trip to Nepal must have zapped more of Castiel’s strength than he was willing to admit, but the fact that he spent the entire next day with the Winchester brothers without flitting off anywhere probably spoke volumes. Dean watched Castiel climb into the backseat of the Impala without a word, and he knew the bastard was holding something back. He was moving like he was sore, the way Dean felt after taking a real pounding from a demon. His fever from last night was gone, but it didn’t leave him looking any better for it.

Dean didn’t get a chance to tell Sam about how blatantly Castiel had avoided the question about falling (what with Castiel hanging around constantly), but it didn’t mean he couldn’t start really watching the angel’s every move. He noticed one thing right away. Castiel was getting worse. Whatever it was, it was steadily eating away at his power. What scared Dean was that he didn’t know where it would end. Would his powers keep fading away until he was just human, or did something else happen to a totally de-mojoed angel?

As if he didn’t have enough to worry about with the fucking Apocalypse hanging over their heads.

They stopped for dinner at a grease pit in Missouri, actually getting a free-standing table with a chair on each side instead of having to cram into a booth together. When their food arrived, Dean and Sam went to town (they’d missed lunch, because ‘lunchtime’ had coincided with passing near Lawrence, and no way in fuck was Dean stopping). 

Dean was halfway through his burrito when he looked over at Castiel and saw the angel sitting there motionlessly, staring down at his untouched cheeseburger and fries.

“Yo, Cas… doesn’t get any prettier the longer you look at it,” Dean teased. Castiel glanced up at Dean, and there was a hint of genuine distress in his eyes that made Dean swallow. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

At that, Sam’s head came up and he turned his attention toward the angel.

Castiel looked back down at the food like it was moving. “I don’t think I can eat this.”

“Why, what’s wrong with it?” Dean leaned over to examine the food. Looked pretty good to him. He picked it up and took a bite to test it. The taste mingled oddly with the hint of burrito in his mouth, but otherwise it was damn tasty. “Seems fine to me.”

“Wow, Dean, checking to see if food’s bad by eating it,” Sam said, “that’s truly disgusting.”

Dean gave him a hot-sauce-coated middle finger and turned back to Castiel. “It’s fine, eat up.”

Castiel eyed the plate unsteadily. “I can’t eat it,” Castiel repeated. Except he’d upgraded from ‘don’t think I can’ to ‘definitely can’t’.”

Dean’s internal alarms were sounding. “You sick?” Without waiting for an answer, he reached over and pressed his hand to Castiel’s forehead. He felt normal. Castiel wriggled out of the touch, face contorting. He folded his arms over his chest, and Dean noticed it because Castiel didn’t cross his arms. And if he was trying to mimic the behavior now, he was doing it wrong. Instead of hands locking over elbows, his hands were holding his ribcage… it looked more like a self-hug than a petulant posture known to anyone who’d ever tried to make a finicky kid eat something.

Dean turned away from his burrito entirely then to turn in his chair to face the angel. “Okay, what’s wrong?”

Castiel shook his head, and Dean might get pissed at that, but fuck if the guy looked like he actually didn’t know.

“You going to puke?”

Castiel seemed to consider the possibility a moment. Then he shook his head. “No, I don’t think so… I just can’t eat.”

Dean glanced over at Sam, who looked just as worried. So now they’d upgraded from no-go on the cheeseburger to no-way on anything belonging to the food category. And how strange was that… once upon a time, it was weird for the angel to eat _anything_. Now they were all fretting over the fact that he _wasn’t_ eating.

“Well, no one’s going to make you eat it,” Dean said, trying to make it sound like no big deal.

“But here,” Sam passed over his small side salad to Castiel. “Might want to nibble at this… frankly, I don’t blame you for not wanting to eat that grease bomb. Using Dean as a role model for what to eat is like taking tips from a heroin addict on how to be a pharmacist.”

“That’s it, see if I let you near the next In-N-Out Burger we see.”

“Well that’s not fair, you know there are exceptions to every rule!” Sam whined.

“Not for primpy bitches, there aren’t,” Dean countered, all the while watching Castiel out of the corner of his eye. He’d accepted the salad from Sam without much enthusiasm, and now instead of eating it he was playing with it, shredding the lettuce into tiny pieces with his fingers.

He might have said something, but Sam’s cell phone began to ring. He fished it out of his pocket, checked the caller ID, and answered. “Hey, Bobby. Whadaya got?”

Castiel leaned forward, heedless of any kind of phone etiquette, and asked over Bobby’s reply, “Has he learned of any means to steal an archangel’s sword?”

Sam shushed him, listened to Bobby a couple of minutes, then nodded. “Okay, we’re on it. Hey, any progress on the angel sword front? No? Okay, keep us posted.” He hung up and looked between Castiel and Dean. “Bobby still hasn’t found a way to disarm an archangel.”

Castiel frowned. “This is an urgent matter.”

“We agree, but not a whole lot we can do about it right now. What else did Bobby say?” Dean asked.

“Something freaky is going on in the woods of Tennessee. Animals are bugging out big time… we’re talking a mass exodus. So many animals are running scared from whatever is going down in the forest that bears, bobcats, deer, porcupines, you name it, they’re all sweeping through the suburbs trying to get away. Bobby says the electromagnetic field surrounding about a two mile radius is going batshit crazy. Add on top of that unseasonal storms, electrical power problems in the area… Bobby thinks it might be a Hellmouth opening up.”

Dean sat up. “What, like in Buffy?”

Sam slapped his hand over his face. “Oh my god, seriously, how am I related to you?”

“This is a very grave situation,” Castiel chimed in, finally looking interested in something other than turning his lettuce into confetti and heckling Sam about swords. “If Lucifer has found a way to open a Hellmouth, hundreds of his minions will be turned loose on the planet.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t that happened already?” Dean asked. “I mean, at the convent when Lucifer…” he glanced awkwardly at Sam (who wouldn’t lift his eyes from his plate, like a repentant dog who’d made a mess on the rug), then forged on, “isn’t this closing the barn door after the horse got out?”

“That was one, yes,” Castiel agreed. “And Lucifer, along with many of his servants, escaped through it. But the divides between planes of existence are much like living things in their own right… when they are torn, they heal. Lucifer will have to open more Hellmouths to bolster his ranks on earth and replace those demons we have already dispatched…” Castiel paused, then thought aloud, “Or he could find a way to convert the souls of human beings still on earth into demons without the need for them to pass through the rigors of Hell.”

“Like I needed something else to worry about,” Dean grumbled. “Wait, doesn’t Rufus have a cabin in Tennessee? Why doesn’t he take care of this?”

“Yeah, he does… pretty much right in the epicenter of this weirdness. That’s how Bobby first heard about it; Rufus called him from his cabin about shit starting to hit the fan. That was a day ago. Bobby hasn’t been able to reach him since. So…” Sam shrugged fatalistically.

Dean groaned. “Fuck, we’re the cavalry. Which means there’s a pretty good chance Rufus is dead.” Dean felt the start of a headache prodding him behind the eyeballs. “All right, let’s go. Someone wave down the waiter and get us some doggie bags.”

**********

Even driving straight through, taking turns behind the wheel, they still had to stop for gas. It was close to four in the morning when they pulled into a twenty-four hour gas station for a fill up. Sam bee-lined for the restrooms – he’d been campaigning for a pit stop for an hour before Dean gave in. Dean climbed sluggishly out of the car to fill up the gas tank. Castiel, having learned to capitalize on the opportunity to ‘stretch his legs’, climbed out after him and looked around.

He didn’t care for this gas station. It was isolated, a lone stop on a stretch of highway. The fluorescent lights above cast flesh tones in a deathly pallor and the dark colors in swallowing pits of black. Dean looked half corpse in the harsh lighting… though his weariness might have a great deal to do with that.

“What?” Dean asked when he caught the angel staring.

“I believe you look like someone from Night of the Living Dead.”

Dean blinked owlishly a moment, then he barked out a rough laugh. “Yeah, I feel it, too. Want to help with that?” When Castiel cocked his head in silent question, Dean handed him a folded bill. “Be an angel and go in and get us some coffee.”

Castiel regarded the money in his hand, then the station nearby. He liked the look of it even less than the lifeless surroundings. The lights were on inside, but there was no sign of any people through the windows. It reeked eerily of a cemetery… full of the idea of people but lacking any actual life.

But if Dean thought coffee would help… “Very well.”

“Thanks, man… and make sure it’s black! None of that vanilla mocha latte crap Sam would get. That shit wouldn’t keep you awake to save your life…” Castiel wandered off while Dean ranted about his brother’s choice of caffeinated beverages.

The bell triggered by the opening door chimed in false cheeriness as Castiel entered the establishment. Aisles of chips, candy, and jerky filled the miserable space, and somehow it all seemed frozen in time. His own footfalls taunted the perfect stillness he’d intruded upon. Castiel’s steps slowed and he stopped. He didn’t like this.

He was wondering how long it would take to procure coffee and leave when a wave of nausea slammed into him. It exploded from the center of his grace and rolled outward, filling him with a queasy sense of _wrongness_. The world seemed to cant to the side. Castiel reached out a hand to steady himself and ended up stumbling into one of the racks of chips. Small bags spilled on the floor. Castiel braced himself and still the sick feeling swarmed over him.

He had to get out. He turned to angle for the door…

… and walked right into a knife that impaled him in the stomach. Castiel sucked in a breath in surprise and looked at the person who had stabbed him. It was a middle-aged man, unremarkable to look at… until he sneered up at Castiel and his eyes went jet black.

Demon.

Reflex kicked in and Castiel grabbed the demon and flung him across the room. It landed against a cabinet of cigarettes behind the counter with a loud crash. The demon made an ungodly noise and scrambled back over the counter to launch itself at Castiel again. Castiel readied himself for a fight. He might be weakened, but he was still an angel. He could still combat a demon. Even if his stomach couldn’t decide between feeling pain or sickness.

In the end, the demon didn’t get a chance to mount a second assault on Castiel. It was deplorable enough that he’d managed to surprise Castiel in the first place. But in a flash of motion, the door burst open and both Winchesters were charging through. Dean was hurling holy water as he barreled toward the demon. It screamed hideously, preoccupied with its burning flesh, when Dean tackled it to the ground. The pair came to rest on the linoleum right in front of Castiel.

Sam was half a heartbeat behind his brother, already sliding onto his knees beside the struggling duo and reciting an exorcism in flawless Latin. Castiel knew he should kneel down and burn the demon out… but God, he did not want to get any closer to it than he already was. Something in him was telling him, _screaming_ at him, to keep away from it.

Sam was digging into a bag Castiel hadn’t even noticed him carrying, fumbling for the demon knife while he continued the exorcism recitation, and finally the demon had had enough. Still pinned under Dean’s weight, face a patchwork of blisters from the holy water, the demon let out a scream, opened its mouth, and black smoke came pouring out. It rushed out toward Castiel before it arched upward. Castiel stepped back, but not quickly enough. A billow of black demon crawled over his leg, full of the essence of rot.

Castiel jerked back further, eyes wide. The roiling inside him became even more intense. It was a restless, poisoned sea raging within his vessel’s skin.

The man who’d been possessed was a lifeless corpse on the floor. Dean and Sam were checking on each other, then Dean was looking toward Castiel. “Cas, there’s a knife… Cas? Shit, dude, you look green, are you…”

Castiel couldn’t speak. He swallowed, and somehow it triggered another gulp. And another. But it wasn’t calming the unrest sweeping over him. He moved away another step, physically shaking.

Dean was scrambling up, moving toward him. “Cas… hey, come here…”

Castiel shook his head, trying to back away faster. Then his throat was full of something putrid, choking him. Castiel bent over to spit it out and it poured out of him in a disgusting rush. His stomach clenched and heaved, his eyes watered, his throat burned, and the vile sea kept splashing up and out of him.

It ended as abruptly as it began, and soon Castiel found himself hunched over, staring down at a puddle of vomit at his feet. He felt wobbly, and he wasn’t sure how he was staying upright until he realized an arm was wrapped around his shoulders, holding him up. Dean. Dean was murmuring to him slowly, “Easy… hands on your knees, Cas…”

Castiel did as he was told, braced himself in a doubled-over position with his own legs and arms, and Dean’s arm around his shoulders disappeared. Castiel felt like it was hardly an improvement (the touch had been calming and reassuring), but then Dean’s hand reappeared at Castiel’s back, rubbing soothing circles over his bowed spine. His second hand snaked around to Castiel’s stomach and pulled out the knife. Castiel hadn’t even realized it was still embedded in him. Dean tossed the weapon to the floor then his hand came up to clamp hard against the wound, quickly becoming as blood-soaked as Castiel’s clothes. At the fresh pulse of blood, Dean’s hand pushed against his stomach harder. It was a sharp contrast to the gentleness of the hand on Castiel’s back.

Castiel thought he should probably thank Dean, or assure him he was okay, but standing there relearning how to breathe seemed to be all he was capable of doing at the moment.

Over Castiel’s back, he heard Dean say to Sam, “We need to find someplace to take care of this.”

Sam must have agreed, because the next thing Castiel knew, he was being put back in the car. Sam started to get in the backseat with him, but Dean waved him off. “I’m already covered in blood… you stay clean so you can go into the front office and get us a room.”

That was how Dean ended up in the backseat with Castiel, the hunter continually putting unpleasant pressure on his injury. Castiel wanted to push it away, but it seemed like too much effort to try.

The rest of the trip Castiel missed more than he caught.

**********

Dean had had enough. It was almost dawn, and he and Sam were hauling a wounded angel into a filthy motel room to stitch up his knife wound from a demon attack none of them saw coming.

Dean was just as much worried as he was angry. For one, Castiel had been stabbed (without the angel just pulling it out and giving the demon a condescending look that Dean knew too well). Then he’d thrown up. Even more unsettling was that demons shouldn’t get the jump on Castiel like that. Unless he was that bad off, that far gone, and fuck it, they needed to _know_ that shit. Soon as he’d stopped bleeding, Dean was getting answers.

“I’ll get the kit out,” Sam said as he hurried past Dean, who was half-carrying Castiel into the room, and laid one of their bags on the far bed.

“That won’t be necessary,” Castiel said gruffly, trying to shake off Dean’s help.

“Shut up,” Dean growled.

Castiel was pushing at Dean’s hand resolutely clamped over the angel’s stomach. “I’m not bleeding anymore, Dean.”

Dean wouldn’t take his word on that… he was going to see for himself. He lowered Castiel onto the edge of the nearest bed and promptly tore open the white button-down shirt. Castiel’s stomach and chest were smeared with blood, but the wound itself was gone.

Sam saw it too, and he just sort of froze, needle and thread in hand. He seemed at a loss for what to do when their stabbing victim was suddenly unscratched.

Castiel looked between them wearily. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine.”

Sam looked down dumbly at the stitching tools in his hands. Dean was just fuming. “You’re fine? You bleed all over my baby’s backseat and that’s all you have to say? You’re _fine_?”

Castiel was toying with the ripped buttons of his shirt, perhaps making a point that Dean had done some vandalizing, too. “I’ll clean up the blood, if that’s what you are concerned about.”

Sam had come back from the bathroom with a wet towel he handed to Dean. Dean set to wiping Castiel’s blood off his hands roughly. “What I’m _concerned about_ is what is going on with you.” Castiel ducked his head. And that… Dean was having none of that. “Come on, Cas… time to come clean and let us in on whatever it is that’s wrong with you. Demons don’t get the drop on you like that, man. Knives don’t do that kind of damage to you. Now come on… what is it?”

Castiel was tensing, expression becoming distant. “I apologize for my inattention and allowing myself to be physically harmed – _however temporarily_.” Definite emphasis there. “Will that suffice?”

“Damnit, _no_! No, that will not _suffice_.” Dean threw down the towel, doubting even hotel bleaching could get all the blood out. He paced briefly, like a mad tiger. He scowled down at Castiel, then squatted on the ground in front of him. He forced Castiel to look at him. “You look me in the eye and tell me everything that’s been going on with you is because you’re falling.”

Castiel stiffened and stood up. Dean followed suit, crowding Castiel as he was so fond of doing himself. Castiel met his stare head-on, and for a minute neither one budged. 

And Castiel conspicuously did not confirm Dean’s hypothesis. 

The last straw was when Castiel cracked and looked away first.

“I’m sorry if you feel I’ve endangered you or Sam…” Castiel began, but Dean cut him off.

“Just stop it… we’re not looking for an apology from you. We just want the truth.”

“No, you don’t.”

Dean’s eyebrows twitched. That pretty much confirmed there was something wrong… but apparently, the humans weren’t worthy of knowing what that was.

“Well, see… now we have a problem.”

Castiel looked back at him, hesitant.

“Because whatever this thing is that you won’t tell us,” Dean said, “it’s compromised you. You’re not at full strength anymore. And _that_ we can work with… we can manage your limits, whatever they might be. But the thing is that you don’t _trust us_. And the number one rule of hunting is you don’t hunt with someone who doesn’t trust you. That’s when people end up dying.”

Sam was looking at him over Castiel’s shoulder, wide-eyed at Dean’s ultimatum. Dean couldn’t afford to flinch, so he ignored his brother and kept his gaze locked on Castiel.

Slowly, Castiel nodded. “I understand… you no longer want me to hunt alongside you.” He looked kind of devastated by that, but he accepted it with grace. He took a breath. “Very well… I will leave.”

For a second, Sam looked about ready to pitch a fit to make any tantrum-prone princess blush. Dean forestalled it by reaching out and grabbing Castiel’s arm. “Shit, Cas, that is _not_ what I’m asking you to do. I’m asking you to _let us in_. Let us help.”

“You can’t.”

Dean frowned, not quite ready to admit that defeat sight unseen, but his grip on Castiel loosened. “Then whatever this weight is… at least let us share it.”

Castiel looked torn as he searched Dean’s eyes for something. 

Finally, Castiel’s barricades came down. He gently pulled out of Dean’s grasp and looked down forlornly at the floor. “It is… it concerns angel reproduction.”

Of all the things Dean had been bracing himself for, that hadn’t been one of them. “Uhhh… say that again?” Sam took a step closer to them, just itching to be morally supportive for _someone_.

“The loss of my powers is due to the drain on my grace caused by a… an unborn angel within me.”

Dean gaped. Sam looked just as dumbfounded. Castiel just seemed to be waiting for the fallout.

Dean did not disappoint. “Are you… dude, are you saying you’re _pregnant_?”

“That is a very crude approximation of the situation, yes.”

That ranked right up there with the wildest, weirdest-ass shit Dean had ever seen or heard in a lifetime full of wild, weird-ass shit. “How can you even… you’re a _guy_.”

“No, I’m not. I am no more male than you are angel,” Castiel countered. “This vessel is not _me_.”

Which Dean had always known, on an intellectual level, but it was still hard to stop his brain from associating, giving to Castiel all the identities and qualities that were Jimmy Novak. So he wrestled with that for a second, trying to wrap his head around angel-pregnant. 

Then he was pissed all over again. 

“What the fuck…? You… you pick _now_ , of all times, to try out some of that cloud seeding? And what, it never occurred to you to protect against this happening? Jesus, Cas, do they not have angel condoms?”

In an instant, Castiel went from mild to indignant. “This was not my doing. I didn’t do anything to cause this. It happened unexpectedly, without warning, and no other angels were involved.”

“No other…” Dean paused. “So one day it was just _bam_ , knocked up?”

“Essentially.”

That fairly blew Dean’s mind. “So you’re a tribble?”

Castiel sighed. “You know I don’t understand that reference.”

Sam finally got a word in. “Don’t pay attention to him, just… so all the problems you’ve been having lately, they’re all because of the…” Sam gestured awkwardly at Castiel. 

The angel nodded. “It is taking from my grace in order to nurture its own.”

“Why, um… why didn’t you tell us?” Sam asked carefully.

“There seemed no reason to,” Castiel answered evenly. He slid a cautious look at Dean. “You claimed limitations could be managed within this group. Is that true for this, or do you still want me to leave?”

Dean blinked. “What, I… geez, Cas, I never wanted you to leave in the first place.” He moved away a few steps, thinking. “Look, this is… well, it’s weird, but I said we can handle it, and we can. We will. You’re not ditching us that easily.”

Castiel visibly relaxed. 

Sam frowned. “You thought we’d kick you out for this?”

“You are human, and this is a very angelic condition. I wasn’t certain how you would react.”

“But the way you tell it, it’s not your fault.”

Castiel looked bemused. “I suspect that does little to alleviate the strangeness of this for either of you.”

Dean snorted. “No shit.” He looked at Castiel standing there, shirt covered in blood, and a sickening thought occurred to him. “Hey, the, uh… the knife didn’t hurt the baby, did it?”

Castiel blinked and looked down at his blood-covered midsection. “No… it’s not in my stomach. And it’s not technically a baby, either.”

“Angel tadpole, whatever… just as long as it’s okay,” Dean grumbled. He moved to a chair that had seen better days and flopped into it. “So, uh… how much worse is all your mojo-drain going to get? I mean, what kind of due date are we looking at?”

Castiel, perhaps copying Dean’s body language, sat back down on the edge of the mattress. “That is something I could not predict in terms of days – your way of understanding the passage of time has never been calculated in relation to this phenomenon. But…” Castiel looked resigned, “it will not be much longer. Perhaps within the week.”

Dean felt a knot of nerves twist up in his gut. Secretly, he’d been hoping for months. From the bloodless look on Sam’s face, he’d been thinking in trimesters, too.

“Crap, well… hell, this is a really inconvenient time,” at Castiel’s dejected look, Dean hastened to add, “which is not your fault! But still… I guess, I mean, there’s that Hellmouth to deal with, but maybe we could… maybe Bobby knows someone else that could deal with it?” He looked hopefully at Sam, who gave a feeble nod of agreement. Hell, they never planned to work around angel pregnancies in their war against Lucifer. “And maybe we could find some place to hole up until you… uh… you know. If we’re looking at a week at best, getting back to Bobby’s might be pushing it. And I don’t know how the hell we’re going to hunt afterward, with a baby in tow, but…”

“Dean…” Castiel interjected.

“Yeah?”

“I appreciate your attempts to accommodate me, but we shouldn’t stop what we are doing. It is crucial that we fight as long as we can.”

“Yeah, but Cas…” Sam hedged.

Castiel cast him a sharp look. “If you try to hold me back, I will continue on without the two of you.”

Dean and Sam exchanged looks. 

“You serious?” Dean asked.

“I am… I intend to fight until I’m no longer able.”

Dean couldn’t help but smile. “Now that I can understand. Okay, if that’s how you feel about it, we’re going to get a few hours sleep, then we’re taking on a Hellmouth.” He watched Castiel intently, looking for any sign of reluctance. The first hint of anything, and Dean would call bullshit, dig in his heels despite Castiel’s protests, and they’d do a probably half-ass job of taking care of an angel set to give birth any day now.

Castiel showed no signs of hesitation. If anything, he looked determined.

So Dean gave a nod and got up out of the chair. “All right then… let’s all get some sleep, because tomorrow is probably going to suck.”

Dean had no idea how prophetic that statement would end up being.

**********

There were three phone numbers in Castiel’s phone. In the beginning, there had only been one. Dean’s. When Sam became a friend instead of the boy with demon blood, his number joined Dean’s on Castiel’s cell phone. The last reluctant addition was Bobby Singer. Even still, Castiel very rarely used any number but the first.

He sat on the edge of the bed in the predawn light stealing through the motel window, staring down at his phone. Sam was sprawled out on the far bed, Dean at rest next to Castiel. They had fallen asleep with ease born of a lifetime of slipping into the unconscious state, but Castiel found he couldn’t sleep. Lying down made the shattered one settle oddly inside him, and while it wasn’t exactly painful, it was uncomfortable. Unpleasant.

Staying awake was preferable anyway. At least if he was awake, Lucifer couldn’t torment him.

The shattered one was moving restlessly, a disturbing presence shattering Castiel’s inner peace. It was entirely too animated lately. It shifted sharply, tugged at his grace too hard, and Castiel winced. He hated that the last days of his life were to be spent longing to escape his own grace just to be rid of the shattered one. 

He wondered what happened to angels when they died.

He stared long and hard at the phone in his hand, tracking the rise of the sun through the thin curtains to know when he could call without being inconsiderate. He had learned so many things from the humans he traveled with.

Finally, he rose from the bed and moved quietly to the door. With one glance back at the Winchesters, he stepped outside the motel room. He scrolled down the address book in his phone and hit ‘send’ when Bobby’s name was highlighted.

The grizzled hunter answered roughly, and Castiel suspected he hadn’t waited long enough to call, despite how many hours he’d sat there staring at his phone.

“There better be a real good reason you’re calling at this god-awful hour,” Bobby snarled.

“I… I apologize. The sun has come up; I thought it would be all right to call.”

“Might be up where _you’re_ at, idjit, but it ain’t up here yet.”

“Oh.” Castiel hadn’t thought about that. It was so hard for him to think of the crawling movement of time the way humans felt it. But calling unacceptably early had made Bobby call Castiel ‘idjit’… that was the elder hunter’s nickname for the Winchesters. It was harsh and derogatory, yet when Bobby said it, it was also shrouded in affection.

Perhaps Bobby was too sleepy to know he’d used the Winchester word on Castiel, but even so, it made Castiel feel strangely happy. He felt like he was one of them. Like he belonged.

“You call me just to point out that the sun’s up in Tennessee?”

“No. Have you found anything that could allow us to steal the blade of an archangel?”

“You mean since _yesterday_ , when I told you I hadn’t?”

“… yes.”

“Listen, soon as I know something, you’ll know something. Not like I’m going to sit on that one just to give everyone ulcers.” Bobby yawned into the phone. “So you boys reach Rufus’s place yet?”

“Not yet, we ran into trouble several hours ago and had to stop for the night.”

“Shit… what kind of trouble?”

“Just a demon.”

Bobby harrumphed. “ _Just_ a demon… fuck our lives. Is everyone okay?”

“Dean and Sam were unharmed.”

“All right… and what about _you_?”

Something in Castiel’s chest clenched. He thought Bobby tolerated him at best, but perhaps he’d misjudged Bobby all along. His brand of kindness toward the Winchesters was always barbed… why should it be different toward Castiel?

“I’m fine.”

“Well, make sure everyone stays that way. You boys watch yourselves out there, you hear me?”

“Yes… I’m going to hang up now.”

“Sure, you do that.” Even with forewarning of Castiel’s intent to end the call, Bobby still beat him to it.

For a moment, Castiel stood in the parking lot, the phone forgotten in his hand. He glanced skyward, read the scripture in the clouds, and said softly, “Gabriel…”

There was no answer. He hadn’t really expected one. Still, he would have felt remiss if he hadn’t tried everything one more time. For all the good it did them.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood out there watching the sun climb up the heavens before the door behind him opened and Dean peered out at him, hair disheveled and eyes squinty. “Yo, Cas… what’s up?”

“The sky.”

It took the hunter a moment to process that, and when he did Dean rolled his eyes. “Hopeless, dude… you ready to head out?”

“Yes, I’m ready.”

**********

Dean tried to remember just how driving over the serpentine dirt road in the Tennessee woods toward Rufus’s cabin turned into this fucking mêlée. Except to use the blanket statement that their lives sucked.

It had started with swerving hard and skidding into the trees trying to avoid hitting a damn bear with his car. Or actually, it started when they realized they were the only things going _in_ when everything else was scrambling to get _out_. Or maybe it was back when Castiel sat up in the backseat and announced all creepy-horror-movie-like that there was a vortex of evil up ahead.

You know what… he was just going to back it up and say it all started when he fucking woke up that morning.

When the car fishtailed into the trees (not actually slamming into any because Dean was fucking NASCAR when it came to handling his baby), it took less than a second for the Impala to be surrounded by demons. Smarmy, black-eyed fucks fresh from the pit.

“Shit,” Dean grumbled. 

Then they were pouring out of the car to fight.

Dean kind of lost track after that. He was flinging holy water like a sprinkler, grinning in satisfaction every time a demon screamed and sizzled like frying bacon. Sam was virtually yelling exorcisms at the demons. He never got to finish one, but just hearing part of it sometimes stunned a demon long enough for Sam to dance in and stab them with Ruby’s knife. They’d run out of salt rounds about fifteen minutes ago and dropped their guns wherever they happened to start dry firing. It felt like an eternity ago.

Dean checked with Castiel out of the corner of his eye now and then… the angel had his sword in hand, striking down any demon that came within range.

“Dean!”

At Sam’s warning, Dean instinctively ducked. A demon that had been lunging for his throat toppled over his crouched body. Before it could try getting up, Dean upended his flask over its face. The demon flailed and screeched as its eyes burned out.

“Behind you, Sam!” Dean barked.

Sam whirled, knife leading, and the demon caught it in the gut. Crackling light competed with the dying croak of the bastard. Sam planted his foot in the demon’s crotch and pushed it off his knife, already looking for his next target.

Dean flung an arch of water into a charging demon’s face. It bellowed and hands like claws reached out for him in blind fury. Dean sidestepped, but not enough. It grabbed hold of his sleeve, and Dean went down with it, kicking and cursing.

“Dean!” Sam yelped.

“I got it, watch your own ass!” Dean snapped as he wrestled with the demon. He straddled it, and hell it was like trying to ride a storm, but before it could buck him off, Dean was spouting the exorcism incantation. He wasn’t as flawless at it as Sam, but he could get the job done.

The demon wailed and seized but finally gave up its body. Dean reared back from the plumes of black pouring toward his face and scrambled off of the corpse. Another demon was on him, grabbing him from behind, fingers digging into his back. Dean yelled and twisted, splashing holy water over his shoulder. The demon screeched hideously, but it refused to let go its prey.

Out of nowhere, Sam was there, burying the knife in the demon’s back. Dean got to watch the shock on its face when it died clinging to Dean Winchester.

Dean shrugged off the demon and like a choreographed move, Dean and Sam stepped toward each other. They pressed back to back, eyeing the situation. Sam’s knife hand was coated in dark blood, the knife stained red from tip to handle. Speckles of blood were all over him. Dean could feel his cheek throbbing from where he’d slammed into the ground with his demon opponent.

Dean looked toward Castiel again. The angel was pulling his blade out of a slain demon while another one practically flew at him from the right. Dean couldn’t open his mouth to scream a warning fast enough. He didn’t need to. Castiel reached out his arm without looking, caught the demon’s face in his hand, and instantly it was burning from the inside out. The corpse dropped and Castiel was turning, sword at the ready, looking for his next foe.

There seemed to be no end to them. They kept coming out of the woods, waves of demons.

Dean shook the flask in his hand (one of many he’d already gone through since the fight began). The small splash inside was not good. “I’m almost out,” Dean informed his brother.

Sam’s shoulder pressed harder into his. “So… we’re going to need a plan B.”

“No shit… I’m open to suggestions.”

“Ummm…” Sam went rigid against Dean, and Dean glanced over and knew why. A wall of demons had formed up in front of Sam, watching him and his knife rabidly. Dean swore. Sam couldn’t handle them all at once. And he wasn’t going to be much help, because more demons were coming at him from the other side. There was an even bigger swarm of them around Castiel… maybe they were drawn to the angel, like sharks to chum. Dean couldn’t even see Cas anymore through the throng of demons.

“Yeah, we might be screwed,” Dean noted oh-so-brilliantly.

Sam glanced quickly at him, and the look could not have lasted but a second, but in it Dean could read the ‘this sucks/I’m sorry/I’m not ready to die’ in Sam’s eyes.

Dean readied himself for a human-style blaze of glory.

A great scream tore through the air, louder than any demon’s death throes, a cannonball of sound that seemed to rattle Dean’s bones and made his ears hurt. The way Sam recoiled alongside him, Dean knew his brother felt it, too.

But the amazing part was that the _demons felt it_. Dean watched them all buckle as one, like the earth had shaken beneath their feet, unbalancing them all in the same moment.

Dean sucked in a sharp breath when _something_ washed over his skin… like a wave of static electricity, sliding in pinpricks over his entire body. It went through him then through Sam, who gave a startled cry and did a weird full-body shimmy.

Dean was too busy watching the demons go flying. Dean could see the wave of whatever it was, because the demons were flung away in its crest. Like a giant hand was flicking them away as if they were no more than beetles. In droves, the demons became airborne, kicking and screaming, smoking and burning… the wave seemingly carried on forever, because the demons never seemed to come down, never looked close to falling to earth. They just got smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter.

Dean whirled about, looking for any stragglers. There were none. There was not a single demon in sight where only seconds before they had been overwhelmed with them.

The only fighter that remained on the battlefield was Castiel. When Dean saw him, his stomach knotted. Castiel was crouched on one knee, doubled over, a hand trapped against his chest. His sword was on the ground next to him, for the time being forgotten.

“Cas!” Dean sprinted toward the angel. He heard Sam barreling after him, footfalls heavy on the hard-packed dirt road.

Dean slid to a stop on his knees next to Castiel, hands immediately on the angel’s back. He looked for blood, but there was so much of it, and no way to know at a glance if any of it was Castiel’s. “Cas!? You hurt? What the fuck was that?”

“That was… me.”

Dean blinked and shot a look up at Sam. His brother looked like a Friday the 13th cast member, painted in blood and still gripping the dripping knife. He looked wide-eyed as his eyes darted between Dean and Castiel.

“What the hell was it?” Dean demanded, shuffling closer to Castiel, still trying to unfold him from his crouch to look him over for injury. Castiel slowly straightened his back, still clutching his chest.

“That was a… defense mechanism.” The angel looked pointedly over at Dean. “Dean, it’s happening.”

It took him a couple of seconds to get it. Then he wished he hadn’t. “Oh… Oh! Shit, _now_?”

Castiel nodded grimly, breathing raggedly and clearly trying not to grimace.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Dean cursed. He looked around the woods, wondering how long they had before the demon hordes were back. “We’re pretty much in the dead center of enemy territory here.”

Castiel shook his head. “They can’t… the wavefront… now that it’s started, they can’t come near me.”

“Really?” Dean looked toward him thoughtfully. “You turned into demon repellant?”

“That’s the point of ‘defense mechanism’,” Castiel returned dryly.

Dean looked back toward the car, then down the road they’d been driving trying to reach Rufus’s cabin. He figured it couldn’t be much farther… better that Cas give birth there than in the middle of a dirt road. “All right… come on, let’s get you to the car.” Castiel grabbed his sword and Dean helped him to his feet. He was breathing tensely, like Dean had any time that he had broken ribs. The thought made Dean careful around the angel’s ribcage. Castiel’s face had gone pale and he was starting to sweat. He eased into the back of the Impala and sagged against the seat. Dean turned to Sam, sure that the same borderline-panicked look was mirrored on his own face. “Okay, let’s go.”

Once they were back on the road, heading to Rufus’s cabin, Dean couldn’t stop stealing looks at Castiel in the rearview mirror. The angel looked like shit. “You doing all right back there?” Dean asked.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t ask stupid questions,” Castiel grumbled. Then his eyes flew wide open, his back arched off the seat, and that ear-splitting scream tore through the car. Sam’s hands clamped down over his ears; Dean tried doing the same and nearly wrecked the car in the process. That tingly rush of static swept over Dean’s entire body, making his hairs stand on end. The back window of the Impala exploded outward in a shower of glass.

“Fuck!” Dean swore, fighting to keep his baby on the road.

Castiel fell back, panting.

Dean threw a look back at his busted window. “Damnit!”

“I’m sorry,” Castiel croaked.

“It’s not your fault,” Dean growled. “Though if you blow out our eardrums, those can’t be replaced.”

“I will… I’ll try not to scream.”

The sincere, gut-wrenching promise made Dean’s blood run cold.

“How much farther?” Sam asked lowly.

“I hope not much,” Dean said. “I don’t want to have to replace every window I have.” He cast another concerned look back at Castiel and pressed down on the gas pedal.

**********

Rufus’s cabin wasn’t much to look at, inside or out. Sam went ahead of them, opening the front door to a single room with a dingy old mattress against one wall, a fold-up cot against another, a rickety wood table, a folding chair, and a dresser with two drawers missing and an old TV on top. They could see a sorry excuse for a kitchen area (and likely a bathroom off of that) from the front door, and a back door next to a college-dorm-style refrigerator. It certainly wasn’t high living.

It was also too small for anyone to hide.

“Rufus?!” Sam called as he walked inside. Dean followed, supporting Castiel with one of the angel’s arms slung over his shoulders and his arm hooked around the angel’s waist. The heat coming off of Castiel was unreal, like the guy was part star.

“Check the back,” Dean grunted, “I’ll stay with Cas.”

Sam nodded and headed toward the back of the cabin.

“Let’s get you on the bed,” Dean said.

Castiel nodded weakly, but before they could take another step, Castiel went rigid and his knees buckled. Dean was suddenly all that was holding Castiel up, and he staggered trying to bear the weight. Castiel pitched into him, pressed to his chest, and his hand shot out and found the first thing he could to grip onto. Which happened to be Dean’s arm. Vice-like didn’t even begin to describe it. “Hey! Easy! Try not to break anything,” Dean groused. Castiel didn’t answer, locked shaking and sweaty against Dean’s chest, gasping hard into his shirt as he rode out the pain, but the death grip on Dean’s arm loosened.

When the ‘contraction’ passed, Castiel regained his footing and pushed back feebly from Dean. He looked unsteady, eyes bright with fever and pain.

“Okay, that’s it… bed, now,” Dean hauled Castiel over to the bed before another contraction could happen. He didn’t know if ‘contraction’ was really accurate, but they were coming closer and closer together like that’s what they were.

When Castiel was seated precariously on the edge of the bed, Dean glowered down at him. His hair was plastered to him with sweat, and his clothes were wet in rings around his neck. He had to be sweltering in two jackets and a button-down. “Hell with that,” Dean mumbled, and he proceeded to strip Castiel out of his trench coat, jacket, and shirt. Castiel sat numbly and let Dean do it, dazed and shaking. Since he hadn’t protested that, Dean knelt and untied his shoes, shucked them, then tossed his socks to the side. He stopped in mid-action reaching for Castiel’s belt. “Uh… does all this need to come off?”

Castiel blinked at him. “Why?”

“Well, I don’t… I mean, does _it_ have to come out…” Dean gestured abstractly at Castiel below the waist, “… _there_?”

Castiel narrowed his eyes, probably trying to look haughty but too wiped to pull it off. “It doesn’t work that way.”

As if Dean fucking knew. “Right.” Dean wanted to ask ‘then how _does_ it work?’, but: 1) he didn’t want to know, and 2) he figured he’d find out soon enough anyway.

With a strangled cry, Castiel crumpled, almost toppling into Dean. Dean caught him and pushed him back on to the bed. “Okay, take it easy. Breathe or something.”

Castiel was shitty at following directions. Instead of breathing he just writhed for a while, then it passed and he lay still, panting.

Sam came back into the room and paused briefly when he saw Castiel half-stripped on the bed.

“Find Rufus?” Dean asked.

“Uh… yeah. But uh, the demons found him first.”

“Shit… damn, Bobby’s going to be pissed.”

Sam swallowed thickly and moved toward the bed. He looked down miserably at Castiel. “Is there anything we can do?”

Castiel closed his eyes. “No.”

“Did you see any washcloths in the kitchen?” Dean asked his brother.

“Yeah… be right back.”

Castiel curled up on his side facing Dean, fidgeting and grimacing as he tried to find a comfortable position. Dean watched him with a frown. He hated seeing Castiel in pain and knowing there was nothing he could do to help. 

When Castiel’s body locked up and his eyes slammed shut, Dean reached out on reflex. He rested his hand on the side of Castiel’s neck, shocked by the heat he was met with. A fever that high on a human would set off seizures and dance the line of severe brain damage.

“Just get through it, Cas,” Dean mumbled. “It’s almost over.”

God, he hoped _all of it_ was almost over.

When it passed, Castiel heaved out a breath and twisted on the bed. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to crawl out of his own skin to escape the pain. John Winchester had looked like that once, knocked on his ass with a kidney stone when Dean was fourteen. It was the worst Dean had ever seen his dad look in his entire life, like it was the worst pain he’d ever been in all his life, and given their lives, that was saying something.

Of course, Castiel _could_ ditch out of his skin if he wanted to… not that it would do any good. But just in case Cas did out of flight instinct, Dean cautioned, “Hey… tell us if you’re about to nuke out of there, okay?” Because having their eyes burned out of their skulls would really just cap off this evening.

“Dean…” the angel keened miserably, his body curling and uncurling restlessly.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

Dean frowned. “For this? Don’t be.”

“There wasn’t enough time… I wanted to kill Lucifer first.”

“Then we’ll do it after. Don’t worry about that right now.”

Castiel’s back arched off the bed, his head thrown back. He was clearly trying not to, but he couldn’t help a mangled cry escaping his throat. Dean flinched away from the sound and the glass of the TV on the dresser cracked.

“Sorry… I’m sorry…” Castiel groaned, balling up on himself with his back to Dean.

“Not like Rufus is going to care,” Dean quipped morosely.

Sam came back with handfuls of wet towels. “The water wouldn’t get very cold, but…” he passed one to Dean. 

“Better than nothing… come here, Cas,” Dean reached over to roll the angel onto his back. His hand came to rest on Castiel’s chest, and Dean yanked his hand away when it felt like touching a hot stove. “ _Fuck_!” Dean grabbed the angel by the shoulder and turned him on his back. His body was soaked in sweat, his cheeks flushed with fever, but that was nothing like the red patch growing in the center of his chest. It looked like a killer sunburn… and it definitely hadn’t been there a minute ago.

“Is this bad?” Dean asked as he placed the cool towel over the irritated section of skin. Castiel hissed. Dean could swear he saw tiny tendrils of steam curling up from where cold water met Castiel’s scorching flesh. “Cas… talk to me… is this supposed to happen?”

Castiel’s only answer was a full body jerk and a strained scream. Dean felt his eardrums throb in a ‘we’re about to hurt like a bitch’ warning. He clapped his hands over them until Castiel’s body went slack again.

Sam was a pacing figure in Dean’s peripheral vision, a fretful distraction Dean really wished would sit down already. Maybe he’d snapped that aloud, because Sam dropped into the folding chair like he’d been hamstringed, hands fisted between his knees while he leaned forward and watched everything with huge, worried eyes. 

Dean reached out and ran his fingers through Castiel’s sopping wet hair. “Is it supposed to take this long?” Castiel trembled violently under his hands, actually making the bed shake with him. Dean glowered at no one (but _damn_ did he wish there was someone he could bully to make this stop). “Come on, Cas,” he growled, “just spit that thing out already.” He didn’t know how much more of this Castiel could take… or how much more Dean could stand to watch.

“You _do_ look like hell, Castiel.”

Dean and Sam both bolted to their feet and spun to face the open front door. Dean’s stomach bottomed out at what he saw. Lucifer himself, smarmy bastard, king of Hell, was standing nonchalantly in the doorway. He had his thumbs hooked into his jeans pockets, elbows bent at an easy angle… he played cool and calm so well, but a fucking cloud of lead-like weight came into the room with him, turning the air itself into quicksand.

Lucifer’s eyes left Castiel writhing on the bed and flitted to Sam. His lips twitched in a covetous smile. “Hello, Sam.”

“Stay the fuck away from him,” Dean snarled. “Don’t even talk to him, you son of a bitch.”

“Now, now… there’s no reason things have to get ugly. I’m not here to take Sam. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

“What…” Sam’s voice cracked, “what does that mean?”

Lucifer nodded absently toward the bed and its angel in agony. “Castiel’s zoning off a good ten mile radius around this place.” Lucifer looked directly at Castiel to address him. “I’m a little annoyed that you’ve closed off my Hellmouth with your separation clearance, but that’s all right… I can always open another one.”

“You mean Cas is putting out a dampening field?” Dean said.

“And who says you can’t learn anything from Star Trek?” Lucifer replied with a smirk. “But yes, that’s as close as your puny human brains are going to come to understanding what’s _really_ going on. Until this is over, I can’t do much more than fly while I’m near him. And my subjects can’t even come this close, so let’s all relax and act civilized, shall we?”

Dean had a nasty retort on the tip of his tongue, as much to heckle Lucifer as to drown out the hammering of his heart, but Castiel spoke first. “Lucifer… why are you here?”

Lucifer strolled into the room like he fucking owned it. He moved toward Castiel.

Dean didn’t think, he just moved. He put himself between the two angels, because fuck if Lucifer was laying a hand on Castiel when he was so vulnerable. 

But Lucifer pushed him away easily, sending Dean crashing into the wall with hardly a flick of his wrist.

“Stop,” Castiel commanded.

Lucifer, surprisingly, did. “All right… I have my qualms with Dean Winchester, but I can put them aside for now.” Lucifer knelt next to the bed. “Are you ready to accept my offer?”

Castiel stared wild-eyed at Lucifer. He arched off the bed, limbs shaking and broken, rasping breaths pulling out of his throat. Lucifer sat there and watched, unmoved.

“Get the fuck away from him,” Dean barked, stepping forward to drag the asshole out by his heels if he had to. As if being tossed was just a fluke and Dean really could best the Devil this time.

“Dean… don’t,” Castiel whispered.

Dean froze.

“Yes, Dean… don’t make me hurt you. That would really upset Castiel.” Lucifer leaned in closer. “Had enough yet? I know you can feel it, your grace ripping in two. I can make that stop.”

“No.”

“So stubborn, brother,” Lucifer sighed. “You’ve let these humans taint you.” He studied Castiel somberly. “It didn’t have to end this way, you know. But if you would rather die than accept my help, I won’t stand in your way. Guess it’ll be the ultimate act of free will, won’t it?” With that, Lucifer rose gracefully to his feet. He looked down at Castiel on the bed for a long, drawn-out moment, then Lucifer turned toward the door.

‘Go,’ Dean thought. ‘Get the fuck out of here right the fuck now.’

“Wait,” Sam called out.

Lucifer stopped and lifted an eyebrow at him. “Yes, Sammy?”

Sam tensed at the name before asking, “What… what do you mean about Cas dying?”

“You mean he didn’t tell you?” Lucifer’s eyes went to Castiel on the bed. Castiel looked away, shaking and breaking. “Interesting. Baby brother’s been keeping secrets from you two.”

“Lucifer, _don’t_ ,” Castiel cried.

A twisted glee of ‘now I have to’ crept into Lucifer’s face. “To complete the separation, Castiel needs a chunk of another angel’s grace. Without it, that little one inside him will try to take everything it needs from Castiel’s grace… and neither one of them can survive that.”

Dean’s eyes flew over to Castiel. 

Sam openly gaped. “You’re lying.”

“I don’t lie,” Lucifer countered. He shrugged. “But don’t take my word for it, take Castiel’s.” Lucifer settled an almost remorseful look on the bedridden angel. “Goodbye, Castiel… I wish I could say there was at least some honor in your death, but there isn’t. It’s pointless. And that’s really the saddest thing about all of this. 

“And I’ll be seeing you soon, Sam.” With a wink, Lucifer strolled out the door as casually as he’d come in.

Dean was at Castiel’s side in a second. “Cas? Is he telling the truth? Is this going to kill you?”

Castiel couldn’t look Dean in the eye.

That told Dean all he needed to know.

“Fuck.” Dean stood up. “ _Fuck_! Why didn’t you say something??”

“Because there was nothing you could have done,” Castiel replied brokenly. “I’m a fallen angel, an outcast… none of my brothers or sisters would help me. This was always a death sentence. I’ve accepted that.”

“Well, _we_ haven’t! There must be something we can do to save you.”

Castiel convulsed on the bed, making a sound Dean had never heard in his life and hoped to never hear again. Like a dying animal flailing in a trap.

“Isn’t there _any_ angel who would help you?” Sam pressed.

“Only Lucifer.”

Much as Dean would rather French kiss a hellhound, if it was that or let Cas die… “Then…” Dean began haltingly.

“ _No_ , Dean. The angel that would be born of that monster would be an heir to his throne. Better this… at least this way, Lucifer will not have an angel under his wing.”

Everyone could agree that Satan 2.0 was something that definitely should not happen. But that also whittled their options down to zero. 

Dean stared down at Castiel in horror, unable to believe that he was literally watching Castiel die. This couldn’t be happening, but one look at Castiel, wrecked and shattered on the bed, and Dean knew that it was. He was losing his best friend, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it.

“Grace is basically like a soul, isn’t it?” Sam chimed in from a pace away.

Castiel dragged his eyes over to Sam, frowning.

“I mean, the _amount’s_ different, but content-wise… they’re pretty much the same, right?”

Castiel grimaced. “Yes… I suppose.”

“What are you getting at, Sam?” Dean ground out. Castiel was on his _death bed_ … this was no time for his brother to satisfy his nerdy curiosity about angels.

Sam stepped forward. “So if you can’t finish this with an angel’s grace, do it with a human soul.”

Dean’s eyes widened and he looked down at Castiel. “Can you even do that?”

Castiel curled on his side, clutching his chest in agony. After the pain passed, he whispered, “I… it’s never been tried before.”

“Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work,” Sam said.

Castiel’s face screwed in a combination of pain and deep thought. “Maybe…”

“Take a piece of mine,” Sam offered without hesitation.

Dean opened his mouth to speak.

Castiel beat him to it. “I can’t… yours is… I know you are a good person, Sam, but your soul is marked. _His_. I can’t use your soul for the same reason I dare not accept Lucifer’s grace.”

Sam looked crestfallen. And hell, justly so… that had some seriously scary implications (to agonize about some other time).

“What about mine?” Dean heard himself ask.

Castiel looked up guardedly at him.

“Would mine work?”

Castiel closed his eyes. Shivers racked his body, pulling choked noises from his throat. It had Dean moving toward the bed without thinking. He sat on the edge and reached out to touch Castiel’s shoulder. “Cas… will mine work?”

“It… might.”

A slim chance was better than none at all. It was better than watching Cas die. “Then do it.”

Castiel’s eyes flew open and locked with Dean’s.

Sam was surging forward, on board and eager to help. “What do you need us to do?”

Castiel was still having one of his staring contests with Dean. Dean knew what he was silently asking. “I’m not letting you die, Cas… we’re doing this.” And whatever consequences came with that decision, he’d deal with them later… just so long as Castiel lived.

“What do you need?” Sam repeated.

Castiel’s resolve cracked. He looked up at Sam. “You need to get in the car and drive as far as you can as fast as you can.”

Dean and Sam looked warily at one another. 

“There will be a great discharge of power upon separation. I can protect Dean as a participant, but I can’t protect you.”

“Okay, got it…” Sam took the keys from Dean and was running out the door in the next second. They heard the car start up and Sam spin out as he raced down the dirt road.

Dean wished they could have just done it right then. But they had to give Sam a chance to get clear, and that meant Dean sitting alone in the room with Castiel on the ragged edge of coming apart. It meant he had time to _think_. He hated that.

“You don’t have to do this,” Castiel croaked, like he was still fit enough to read Dean’s mind. Like he would genuinely understand if Dean just let Castiel die rather than sacrifice part of himself to save the angel. He didn’t even sound like he’d be upset about Dean being that much of a selfish prick.

“I’m not letting you die, Cas.” And if Dean was freaking out a little, well… he was only human. But one determined to save his friend.

Any response Castiel had in mind was lost when his body spasmed. He fisted his hands in the covers until his knuckles turned white. Against his best efforts, a scream ripped out of his throat. Dean jerked back and closed his hands over his ears, but not soon enough… he could feel that all-too-familiar wet warmth of blood trickling out of his ears.

Then it was over and Castiel was gulping for air. His chest was a fiery red, so concentrated in places that the skin was taking on an orange hue.

To call it alarming would be a massive understatement.

“Why are you so hot?” Dean asked.

“Grace is hot,” Castiel answered simply, more focused on holding himself together than Dean’s question. “And mine is tearing in half.” Suddenly, Castiel let out a mangled yelp and bucked up off the bed. He struggled to hands and knees, body flexing and clenching like he was heaving after a night of heavy drinking, but the only thing that came out of his mouth were desperate noises.

“Dean… _Dean_ …”

“What, Cas? I’m here, _what_?”

“I can’t… I can’t hold out anymore.”

Dean’s mouth went dry. “Okay…” Cue panic and racing heart. “Okay, what do you need me to do?”

“ _Be sure_.”

“I _am_ , damnit, now what do I do?!”

Castiel blindly reached out a hand and snagged Dean by the wrist. He pulled. Dean went without a fight, climbing onto the bed and lying awkwardly next to Castiel. Castiel’s teeth were bared in a pained grimace and his chest looked like it was about to combust when he dragged his eyes over to Dean. Sweat dripped off his body, making a damp mess of the covers.

Castiel let go of Dean’s wrist, grabbed the neckline of the hunter’s shirt, and yanked. Dean’s shirt tore away like it was tissue paper, leaving him suddenly very worried about where this was going.

The angel’s hand next came to rest atop Dean’s chest. It just rested there at first. “Stop me _now_ ,” Castiel warned brokenly. Dean could feel tremors in the fingers Castiel had laid against Dean’s chest.

“Quit stalling and _do it_.”

Castiel nodded faintly. “Close your eyes.”

Dean did.

Light flared beyond his eyelids, filling his vision with the blinding red of bright light passing through his lids. He felt it all over him, like he was that dumbshit in that myth who flew too close to the sun and fried. He was ground zero of a nuclear explosion, epicenter of a supernova.

He screamed when it suddenly felt like acid was eating through his chest. He felt it burn through skin, through bone, through everything physical he was and creeping into something more _Dean_ than anything ever was. _Who he was_ came under attack, liquid lightning was clawing into him and pulling him apart.

He could hear wings, loud and close. He knew the sound of their beating. But he also heard a sound like fabric tearing. Like bones snapping. He couldn’t tell his screams from Castiel’s anymore. He didn’t think he could scream – the fire was burning the air in his lungs.

When blackness rushed to swallow him, Dean let it. Gladly.

**********

When Dean finally regained consciousness, he had no idea how long he’d been out cold. He was flat on his back, blinking up at the cabin’s ceiling and trying to figure out just what the hell had happened to him. He felt like he’d been hit by a truck, then bounced against the undercarriage a few times for good measure. There was an aching _wrongness_ throbbing hollowly inside him. Something was missing, something Dean wouldn’t even be able to name, but he knew with the whole of his existence that it was gone. It kind of felt like the hole in him when Sam had been at Stanford, ignoring Dean’s calls. But worse, because this felt unfixable… he couldn’t go to Palo Alto and get this back.

Dean tried to move and his own cracked groan surprised him. It shattered an eerily-absolute silence hanging over the room. Dean rolled his head to the right to check the light coming through the window in order to try and judge the hour, but his breath caught at what he saw.

The curtains were charred, eaten up as if by fire until they were half their old length. The windows themselves were busted out. The walls were coated in soot. The metal folding chair was warped, sitting there grotesque and deformed and blackened around the edges. The smell of incineration was in the air, making Dean’s lungs itch.

Dean turned his head to the left. Castiel was lying beside him, back turned to him and torso angled toward the bed, so all Dean saw was a stretch of bare back and a head of wet black hair.

He watched long enough to see that Castiel was breathing, then he shifted closer. “Cas?” Dean whispered hoarsely. He cleared his throat and reached up to touch Castiel’s back. The skin wasn’t scalding hot, thank god. 

The touch didn’t cause Castiel to so much as stir.

Dean hauled himself up onto his elbow. He leaned toward Castiel, trying to catch a glimpse of his face. “Cas…?” Castiel’s arms were folded near his chest, pressing into the singed mattress. He was unconscious.

Dean wrapped his hand around Castiel’s shoulder and tugged the angel toward him, meaning to turn the angel on his back.

A sound, like sweaty thighs peeling off a hot leather seat in summer, followed Castiel’s body moving. When Castiel was drawn away from the mattress, his arms unfurling limply, Dean’s eyes went wide. In the spot where Castiel had just been was a baby. For a second Dean just stared. The newborn was lying prone, arms opened wide and legs straight from being pressed tight to Castiel’s chest. When Castiel’s weight was moved away, the little thing flinched. Legs tucked and kicked, small arms waved jerkily, then its little chest began to move with its first breaths.

As Castiel turned onto his back, head lolling, the baby began to cry.

Dean sat up immediately, hit with a sharp flight reflex.

The baby – a boy – wailed its way into life.

Dean glanced a little frantically at Castiel. The angel showed no signs of waking anytime soon. His chest had faded back to an angry, sunburned red. To match, the baby on the bed next to Cas looked abnormally flushed.

Hesitantly, Dean reached across Castiel and laid his hand over the baby’s stomach. It was high-fever hot. That couldn’t be good. 

Dean got stiffly off the bed, went around to the other side, and bent down to carefully gather up the baby. He couldn’t believe how tiny he was, how little he weighed in his arms. His cries lessened at being handled. “You don’t seem like enough to cause such a big deal,” Dean said. The baby resorted to whimpering. “Come on… let’s see if we can cool you off a little.”

He took the baby to the kitchen sink, wet a washcloth, and did to him what he’d done to Cas earlier. He touched the cool cloth to overheated skin. The baby seemed to like it. Even his whimpers stopped, and Dean was so intent on his task that when he looked up into the child’s face and was met with blue eyes, he startled. “Huh… hey, look at that,” Dean chuckled nervously, “you’ve got Cas’s eyes.”

The baby regarded him intently, little face lined with concentration like Dean was a great puzzle he had to figure out. “Yeah, you got that from him, too,” Dean quipped. 

Joking and focusing on his task seemed to help forestall freaking out.

When he felt better about the temperature of the baby’s skin, Dean tossed aside the washcloth and lifted the baby up. At a loss for what else to do with it, he tucked it against his bare chest. The baby cooed and nestled closer. Dean swallowed at the weird feelings that kicked up.

He went back to the main room and checked on Castiel again, wondered how long it would take before the angel regained consciousness, then fished the ruins of his shirt off the floor and bundled the baby up in it. The cot by the far wall was mil-spec and had held up better than the curtains. Dean laid the baby down there then stepped back.

It was starting to creep up on him just what he was dealing with.

He fished his phone out of his pocket. Having been on his person at the time, it seemed to have been afforded the same protection from being roasted that Dean himself had… though the faceplate was a spider web of cracks. At least it worked when Dean flipped it open. He found a text message from Sam waiting. It was simple.

_????_

Dean had a hell of a time answering. It was more than he could even begin to cover in a text. In the end, he hit send after typing

_its a boy_

He didn’t know what else to say. He covered his mouth with a hand, staring in some kind of delay-onset horror at the consequences of saving Castiel’s life lying wrapped up in his torn shirt.

Fuck… now what the hell was he supposed to do? 

He wandered over to the dresser and leaned back against it. From there, it was no trouble to see both Castiel on the bed and the baby on the cot.

He’d just take a minute and think about what to do.

**********

Dean was still perched there when the glare of headlights swept in through the broken windows of the cabin. Dean was pushing off the dresser and moving toward the door in a heartbeat. 

He’d never been more happy to see Sam in his life. 

Sam came toward the cabin with a bag in hand, but as he neared his pace slowed. He looked wary. Dean did _not_ blame him.

“Hey,” Dean greeted, “where have you been?”

Sam sidled around Dean in the doorway into the cabin. “Whoa,” he faltered when he saw the charred state of the room, but he recovered quickly. He held up the spare bag. “I thought… I was close to town anyway, and then your text… I, uh… I got some things.” His eyes skittered around the room. “Uh… where is… it?”

Dean moved out of the line of sight of ‘it’ and gestured helplessly toward the cot by the wall.

Sam went still at first, then he put the bag down and approached the baby.

While Dean scooped up the bag to see what Sam had picked up (secretly hoping his formerly-psychic brother would have the foresight to bring him in a new shirt), Sam stood over the cot staring down at the baby. He looked dumbfounded… and really, what does someone say in a situation like this? Congratulations?

“He has Cas’s eyes,” Sam said numbly.

“Yeah, he does.” Dean found the bag full of bottles, formula, diapers, onesies... basically everything Dean had hoped he would never have to deal with. He’d rather tangle with a wendigo than a dirty diaper.

Seemed like he wasn’t going to have a choice, though.

“Has Cas seen him yet?” Sam asked.

“He hasn’t woken up since…” Dean wasn’t even sure how to describe what they’d done. Just the memory of it gave him the creeps.

Sam looked Dean’s way. “Are you okay?”

“Honestly? Not really. I feel…” broken, shattered, cracked, robbed, “I don’t even know how to explain what Cas did...” Dean massaged his chest, thankful to find everything intact; he was a little surprised, given the ruinous feeling of being melted alive he remembered distinctly. Dean shook it off. “But you know, whatever, I’ll be fine. Cas is alive… that’s what matters.”

“Sure, of course…” Sam nodded. Then his eyes went back to the baby, like he couldn’t stop himself from checking to make sure it was actually _there_. “What, uh… what are we going to do with him?”

“You think I have the first clue? This is way out of our league.” Dean suddenly felt overwhelmed by the bag of baby things and shoved it aside. “Shit, Sam… we can’t take care of a _baby_. We’re in the middle of an apocalypse here!” Which might have been something he should have thought about _before_ , but all he’d had on his mind at the time was making sure Castiel didn’t die.

Sam looked just as flummoxed as Dean.

Which was the exact moment Castiel chose to start coming around. He entered the conversation with a wrecked groan. Dean was at the bed in a second. He took a seat on the edge next to Castiel, who was shifting and fidgeting. “Heya, Cas. Nice of you to join us.”

Castiel pried his eyes open and peered up blearily at Dean. He blinked. “Dean?”

“Yours truly.” Dean reached out and carefully touched the center of Castiel’s chest. It was warm, but no more than he’d expect from someone running a regular fever. Which was a vast improvement over molten lava. 

Castiel startled slightly at the touch, glanced down at Dean’s hand, then mused aloud, “I’m not dead.”

“Not today… though that was a close call.” Dean pulled his hand away. “Try _not_ to do that in the future.”

“I’ll do my best.” Castiel winced.

“How do you feel?”

“Diminished.”

Maybe that was how Dean should say he felt, too.

“But pleasantly surprised to still be alive.” 

As if taking it easy was not in an angel’s dictionary, Castiel began to struggle into a sitting position. Dean helped him, hauling him up and propping him against the headboard. Castiel looked dizzy a moment, holding onto Dean with one hand (Dean suspected Castiel didn’t even realized he was doing it) as he waited for the world to stop spinning.

When it did, Castiel looked up and caught sight of Sam in the room. A look in the younger Winchester’s direction led Castiel’s gaze to the moving bundle on the cot by Sam’s legs.

Castiel went completely still. If Dean had been bugging out about suddenly having a baby, Castiel looked absolutely freaked out seven ways from Sunday.

Sam frowned at Castiel’s expression and looked toward Dean for guidance. Dean jerked his head toward Cas. Sam got the message. He bent down and picked up the baby. It began to fuss while Sam carried it over to the bed. 

The closer Sam came with the baby, the further back Castiel pressed into the bed.

Sam reached them and sat balanced on the opposite side of the bed, baby cradled in his arms. “Hey, Cas… want to meet your son?”

If he had the strength to do it, Dean thought the angel would have scrambled out of the bed completely. As it was, he was leaning away from the baby like it might turn into the Thing and attack him. And Dean thought _he_ wasn’t dealing with the baby thing well… Castiel looked like he wanted nothing to do with it.

“Cas?” In completely uncharted territory or not, Dean hadn’t expected the angel to reject the infant.

“I’m not comfortable with that,” Castiel stated plainly, giving the baby a hairy eyeball.

“Yeah, we can see that…” Dean frowned. “Look, it’s okay, I’m kind of weirded out, too.”

“Do you want to hold him?” Sam offered hopefully, beginning to hold out the baby.

Castiel drew back sharply. “No.”

Sam looked like Castiel had kicked his puppy. He tucked the baby back into the crook of his elbow. “Did you bond with him at all while he was in you?” Sam asked in a wounded voice, and from anyone else that would probably sound douchey, but Sam made it such an innocent question that not even Dean could fault him. And he kind of wondered what Castiel’s answer would be.

Castiel gave Sam a sharp look and visibly bristled. “ _That_ was the intrusion within my grace that would eventually lead to my death. My feelings toward it could hardly be classified as affection.”

The baby abruptly started crying.

Castiel flinched. He sent an imploring look Dean’s way. “Make it stop doing that.”

“He’s probably just hungry. Sam, give him to me. I’ll hold him while you fix a bottle.”

Sam passed the baby over Castiel into Dean’s arms. While Sam went and dug through the bag of baby stuff, Dean settled on the bed closer to Castiel. The angel tensed but didn’t move away… Dean didn’t think he would. Castiel had some freaky affinity for being all up in Dean’s personal space. Dean figured Castiel would let the baby come closer if Dean was holding it.

“Look, Cas… I get it. I do. I’m freaked out, too, believe me. You weren’t looking to get saddled with a kid; and let’s face it, neither was I. But fate’s kicked us in the nads yet again. He’s here now. What would _you_ suggest we do with him?”

Castiel glanced uneasily at the newborn Dean was holding. He looked uncertain. At least he wasn’t openly hostile. Dean would take what he could get.

“So, uh… does that soul thing, whatever you did…” Dean still had no way to describe what Castiel had done to him, “does that make him… you know, does that mean he’s my son?”

Castiel’s attention on the baby shifted, turned more analytical, and it actually softened his approach to the infant. “He is more me than you… I took as little of your soul as I could to complete the separation. But there are undeniably pieces of you in him.” Castiel paused a moment. “If you wish to call him your son, it wouldn’t be inaccurate.”

“Well, I can’t exactly call him my angel-human grace-soul baby.” Dean joked, then he looked back down at the baby. “So… mostly you, huh?”

“I had to sacrifice much more of my grace than would have been ideal… you could not spare enough of your soul to compensate for the contribution of another angel.”

“So you picked up the slack,” Dean mused. “Sorry I wasn’t much help.”

“You were the difference between life and death,” Castiel countered.

“Yeah, for you and this little guy both,” Dean shifted the baby in his arms as he started to cry again.

Castiel looked consternated that the saving of his life also meant the creation of the child’s. “This is not an opportune time to be responsible for caring for an infant. We have to stop Lucifer.”

“I haven’t forgotten. We’ll make it work.” Honestly, he had no fucking clue how they’d do that, but Winchesters were good at making due with what little they had in a shitty situation. 

Besides, as resistant as Castiel was to the baby’s mere presence, the last thing Dean wanted to do was seem to agree with him about the kid actually being hugely inconvenient. He didn’t _think_ Castiel would smite a baby… but then, _angel_. Dean knew enough to know that angels didn’t think the way humans did about anything, and the wrongness of killing a baby could be yet another thing where they disagreed on right and wrong.

Castiel looked about to argue the point, anyway.

“He’s family, Cas,” Dean snapped. “We don’t give up on family.”

The angel wisely said nothing.

“Here,” Sam offered a bottle of formula to Dean.

“Okay… let’s see if I remember how to do this, it’s been a while since I bottle fed Sam. Actually, no, never mind, that was just last week.”

Sam snorted. “Jerk.”

“Bitch.” Dean arranged the baby to rest in the crook of one arm. He stuck the bottle nipple in the baby’s open mouth and wiggled it against his tongue. The baby clamped his mouth down, seemed surprised at the first taste of milk, then began to suck in earnest. The silence while he suckled was truly golden. 

“Thank god he’s not a finicky eater. Got _something_ from me, at least,” Dean muttered. 

Sam edged in closer for a better view, probably melting inside like the big girl he was.

Castiel made no move to participate, but he watched out of the corner of his eye the entire time.

**********

“Son of a _bitch_ ,” Dean cursed when he saw the forked crack in the windshield of his beloved car. “What the hell, Sam.”

“Dude,” Sam tossed one of their bags in the trunk, “talk to Cas.”

Dean went quiet, seething privately. “This happened when the baby did?”

“Yeah… I was hauling ass trying to get clear, but I still got hit with some kind of shock wave, and…” Sam waved at the windshield. “Just be grateful I managed to keep from crashing into a tree.”

Dean grumbled under his breath, but didn’t bitch anymore about the windshield. The back window was still busted out. In very little time, the Impala had gone from looking like a well-tended car to a rolling eyesore.

While Dean went back into the cabin, Sam stepped to the side and dug his phone out of his pocket. It was early morning as they packed up to head out. They’d stayed the first night (honestly, because Cas looked like he was in no shape to be moved), but Dean was shaking them awake before dawn to start getting their shit together. He didn’t want to stay where Lucifer had found them, and Sam was in complete agreement with that.

When Bobby answered Sam’s call, it was by launching into a tirade. “I’m going to stick a GPS up both y’all’s _asses_. Didn’t think I might be waiting to hear from you after sending you off into a god damn Hellmouth? You better be calling from a hospital where you _just_ regained consciousness or I’m rolling my ass down there and killing you myself. _Well_?”

Sam winced. “Hey… sorry, Bobby.”

“Sorry… _right_. At least tell me everyone’s okay.”

“We’re all alive,” Sam answered. “Actually, I’ve got some good news and some bad news… which do you want first?”

“Might as well get it over with… the bad.”

“The demons got to Rufus before we could. He didn’t make it.”

“Oh, damn.” Bobby huffed, like it really sucked ass but Bobby wasn’t really surprised, either. Such was the life of a hunter. “So what’s the good news?”

“The Hellmouth’s gone.”

“Huh… how’d you boys pull that one off?”

“Actually, Cas did it.”

The noise Bobby made was suitably impressed. “Well, at least having an angel around is good for something. Wish I could tell you to throw back a few and take a minute to enjoy doing the damn-near impossible, but there’s something brewing down toward Los Angeles.”

“Demon activity?”

“How else would you explain a sudden bout of subzero temperatures?”

Sam glanced toward the door and saw Dean helping Castiel toward the car. The angel still wasn’t looking very good. He was leaning heavily on Dean and moved like everything was sore… he looked like how Sam had felt after the car accident with Dean and Dad, when he’d hurt from head to toe.

“So shag ass to the City of Angels and get on it,” Bobby was saying in his ear.

“Uh… that might be a little tough.”

Bobby’s expectant glare was in the silence.

“We, uh… we kind of ran into a little… snag.”

“… I’m listening.”

Dean eased Castiel into the backseat of the car.

“I don’t quite know how to say this, but… Cas sort of… had a baby.”

At first, there was only silence. Then Bobby’s hard voice growling, “Sam, I know your brother’s a lost cause, but I thought you had better sense than to drink this early in the morning.”

“I’m not kidding, Bobby. And I don’t know if we’re really up to fighting form right now. Cas is wiped out, and we’ve got a newborn baby in tow…”

“You’re not joking.”

“No, I’m _really_ not.”

“Oh, of all the… and how in the hell does that angel manage to go and have a _baby_?”

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s a long story.” Sam sighed. “But I’m serious… right now, I’d say we’re out of commission.”

“The Apocalypse ain’t exactly something where you can call in a sick day, Sam,” Bobby said lowly.

“I _know_ , but we’re just going to have to take some time that we don’t have.” Sam swallowed as he flashed back to the angel writhing and screaming in agony on the bed. “You didn’t see him, Bobby. It almost killed Cas.”

Bobby went quiet. Sam looked toward the cabin again and saw Dean coming out, this time with the baby in his arms.

“All right,” Bobby finally said, “I’ll see who else I can put on this shit-storm in L.A. I suppose you idjits aim to head back here?”

“Well… just until we come up with a better plan.”

Bobby grunted and hung up. Sam pocketed his phone and hurried over to the car. Dean had just reached the open back door and was leaning down to look in at Castiel, the baby held gently to his chest. “Hey, Cas… look, I know you don’t want to, but… I need you to hold on to him while I drive.”

Castiel looked beleaguered at the request more than appalled. Maybe he was just too tired for appalled. “Very well.”

Dean carefully handed the baby over, lying him on his stomach on Castiel’s chest. Castiel looked down warily at the infant. His hands sort of hovered in midair at his sides, not sure what to do. The baby snuggled down, looking ready to fall asleep then and there and seemingly oblivious to Castiel’s reluctant roll of caregiver. With a look of resignation, Castiel finally laid one hand over the baby’s back and held it there.

“Was that Bobby?” Dean asked Sam over his shoulder.

“Yeah… told him we were heading his way.” Sam didn’t mention the demon ice-party in California. Dean had enough on his mind.

“Good… least there I can put my car back together. That’s everything out of the cabin… let’s hit the road.”

Sam claimed his spot sitting shotgun. Dean got behind the wheel, but before he started the engine he turned in his seat to look back at Castiel and the baby. Cas was slumped in the seat, sprawled like a teenager in homeroom. The baby was tucked contently against his chest, Castiel’s hand almost perfunctorily covering the child’s back.

“Cas… can you fly?” Dean asked.

Castiel looked miserable and stricken at the same time at the question. “Dean, I need time to recover…”

“I’m not talking about zapping over to Italy to grab us a pizza. I mean, could you fly a really short distance? Like, could you mojo out of the car?”

Castiel looked sidelong at the car door next to him, the world beyond only a few feet away. “I believe I could… but what would a journey so small accomplish?”

Dean’s jaw clenched. “Because we don’t have a car seat, man. I’ll be careful, but… if we get in an accident – and our luck lately, it would just figure – I want you to take the baby and get him out of the car before he gets hurt. Okay?” Now Sam realized why Dean hadn’t drafted him for baby-holder duty. He had no superpowers to safeguard the tyke.

Castiel looked steadily at Dean, his hand draped motionlessly over the baby’s body. “I would suggest you simply avoid any collisions.”

“Thanks, smartass… just look after him.”

“Very well.” The angel settled his hand more securely over the baby sleeping on his chest. Sam suspected Castiel would doze off before too long, considering how beat he looked.

He was right. They’d barely been on the road ten minutes before angel and baby were both sleeping in the backseat.

**********

Driving with a newborn to care for made the role of driver and passengers much more fluid. Castiel would hold the baby, but he was pretty much worthless for anything else. At least the infant seemed to be perfectly happy to stay cuddled up to Cas; he only fussed or cried when he was hungry or needed changing. That was when the Impala became musical chairs, with Dean swapping out with Sam so he could hop in the backseat and take care of the baby. Sam thought Dean was being a trooper about it, truth be told. He never bitched at Castiel for not doing more. He didn’t gripe about the growing amount of crap in the floorboard (blankets and baby clothes and bottles and wipe cloths). He didn’t complain about the added hassle the baby brought into their lives (at a time when they really couldn’t afford any distractions from saving the world). He just focused on the task at hand and did what he had to do, no whining.

Actually, Sam had seen it before. It was how Dean went into soldier-mode back when their dad was still alive and Dean was ever the good little lieutenant. He wondered if that was what Dean was like when he had to take care of Sam as a baby. He could too easily imagine that concentrated, intent look on a young Dean’s face, old beyond his years.

He did it all so easily that Sam didn’t realize how much the situation was actually weighing on Dean until they stopped for the night at some motel off the highway. Sam came out of the front office with the keys to their room and spotted Dean over by the vending machine. He was standing with one hand braced against the machine, head hung low while he just took a minute to get himself together.

Torn, Sam eventually opted to leave Dean alone for now and went to the car. He opened the back door and peered in at Cas. “Hey… got a room. Need any help?”

“I can manage on my own.” Castiel was looking much better than he had that morning. Hopefully he’d be back to fighting shape in a day or two (because much as Sam _did_ care about Castiel feeling better, there was also the fact that having a capable angel on their side was kind of a tactical advantage they couldn’t afford to lose). Though that still didn’t answer the question how they were supposed to fight the Devil with a baby to look after.

The angel held the baby to him with both hands and shifted around until he could swing his legs out of the car. He stood easily, no hint of swaying, and glanced toward Dean. The way he was holding the baby looked odd… like an afterthought. It was distant and impersonal… it may as well have been a potted plant for all the tenderness Cas was showing.

And yet, the baby looked peaceful in his arms, curled against the angel’s chest and peeking up calmly at Sam with one blue eye, the other eye smushed against Castiel’s body.

“How is it he looks like that?” Sam asked without thinking.

Castiel looked toward Sam, then down at the dark head of hair so close to his chin. He cocked his head at Sam in silent question.

“Why does he look… human? Shouldn’t he be, you know, light and energy or something?”

“He is… inside. So are you. But if you are asking about his physical form… the part of him that is human has dictated his appearance. Uncontained grace would have destroyed the human in him; he has a body because that is what he needed to have in order to survive, being what he is. Were he pure angel, he wouldn’t look like this.” Less of a nuisance/burden/liability was what Castiel’s tone implied. Sam wasn’t going to touch that one.

“Oh… so, when he grows up, is he still going to be like a human on the outside, or…” Sam trailed when he saw the blank look on Castiel’s face. He realized why. Castiel wasn’t thinking of the baby growing up at all.

Before Sam could get a handle on the discomfort of that notion, Dean joined them, game face back in place. “What’s with the standing around in the parking lot? Come on, let’s go inside. Here, Cas, you can let me have him.” Castiel readily passed the baby over to Dean. The baby wiggled and squirmed until he was pressed softly against Dean’s body, where he settled with a happy mewling noise.

Dean snorted. “Are you sure this little guy isn’t part Sam? Because he’s a huge cuddler.”

“You know what,” Sam sighed, “I’m too tired to even come up with a fitting caustic response to that. I call dibs on the shower.” He went first into the room, angling for the bliss of a hot shower.

He hoped Dean didn’t turn on the TV and see any news reports about Los Angeles.

**********

“Oh my god, he’s _adorable_!” the waitress gushed over the baby Dean had laid against his shoulder. She put the coffee pot down on the table and leaned in for a better look. “Awww, isn’t he just precious… is he yours?”

“Yeah,” Dean answered a little awkwardly while Castiel, sitting in the booth beside him, merely looked away. He just hoped she didn’t ask what his name was, because as yet he was just ‘the baby’.

“Well, he’s beautiful; you must be so proud. Gosh, going to be a lady-killer, that one,” she cooed.

Castiel looked over sharply at that. He probably thought the woman was prophesizing about the child’s future as a serial killer. So not what Castiel needed to get in his head about the baby that he was only starting to put up with.

“Thanks… gets it from me; I’m a handsome devil,” Dean winked.

Sam rolled his eyes.

When the waitress had their breakfast orders (giving the baby one last adoring glance before she left), Sam was leaning inward like he had something big and important on his mind. Of course, he’d had that look about him since he was five. 

“Okay, we need to have a talk about the nephilim.”

The word meant nothing to Dean, but the way Castiel fidgeted suddenly, it sure as hell struck a cord with him.

“What are the nerf-herders?” Dean asked.

“Nephilim,” Castiel corrected. He looked over at Dean, darted a fleeting look down at the baby (because he was the topic of conversation, so a glance was almost unavoidable), then returned his eyes to Dean’s. “Nephilim were the children of angels and humans.”

“Wait, so guys like him have been born before?”

“Not like him,” Castiel said faintly, rigid with discomfort. Then he went into lecture-mode. “Before the flood, the sons of God and the daughters of men laid together and gave rise to the nephilim. They were powerful beings who blurred the lines between angel and man, existing partly in both worlds, in neither entirely.”

“Well, that’s the first I’ve heard about them. How did _you_ know about them?” Dean asked Sam.

Sam shrugged sheepishly. “I’ve been doing some research online, trying to find out what we’re up against.”

Way to choose his words poorly. Dean frowned. “You make it sound like he’s a hunt... he’s just a _baby_.” He chose to ignore that little voice in his head saying, ‘no, he’s really not _just_ a baby’. He looked over at Cas. “So, these nerf-herders…”

“Nephilim.”

“Are they another class of angel kicking around in Heaven that we haven’t met before?”

Castiel hesitated a second. “The nephilim are extinct. They were all destroyed a long time ago, by the command of God.”

All Dean could do for a second was gape. Something uneasy stirred in his stomach. “Why? Were they… were they evil or something?”

“Not necessarily. Many were lauded in their respective communities for their contributions. They were known as heroes of old and men of renown. Many of the nephilim accomplished great things.” Sounded pretty cool to Dean. “But there were tyrants among them, too. They had human emotions but the powers of angels, and just as some humans are cruel, so too were some nephilim… but a cruel nephilim was far worse than a cruel human being. It was almost an irresistible temptation to abuse their power over mortal men. In the end, that unpredictability and volatility was too great a threat, and God had them slain.”

“All of them?” Dean squawked. “But you said a lot of them were good guys… why punish the whole group for a couple of bad apples?”

“The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones,” Sam quoted pensively.

Castiel nodded. “That is more or less the reason.”

“So are angels going to be coming after him?” Sam asked, nodding at the baby in Dean’s arm.

Something knee-jerk in Dean made him stiffen up and hold the baby a little tighter. He shot a look over at Castiel. “Would they do that?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel answered simply. He didn’t look especially concerned about it, and that rattled Dean’s nerves. Hell, for all he knew, Castiel saw these possible henchmen of God out for the kid’s head as a way to get out of dealing with the baby.

First order of business: get Castiel to care about the baby somehow, to some degree… because Dean wasn’t an idiot (some people’s opinions to the contrary). He knew he didn’t have a hope in hell of looking after a baby that was mostly angel on his own. 

But back to the matter of the baby-slaying angel hit squad gunning for the boy on his shoulder…

“Over my dead body,” Dean snarled. He wasn’t sure how _he_ felt about the baby yet, but it was still his son. Still an innocent. Saving innocent people was still Dean’s first instinct, his upbringing, his defining characteristic that excused all of the rest of his bad behavior.

Castiel looked slowly over at Dean and regarded him closely. He looked down thoughtfully at the baby. Dean could practically see him putting the pieces together. Dean had made it clear that he would fight to the death to protect the baby if he had to. Castiel might be ambivalent toward the infant, but he would do whatever he had to in order to keep Dean safe. Dean watched the tumblers click into place and Castiel accept the fact that in order to keep Dean from harm, he would also have to protect the baby. With a solemn nod, he took that duty upon himself like a foot soldier receiving orders.

And Dean wished Castiel’s protectiveness toward the baby wasn’t just an extension of his determination to protect Dean, but right now he’d take what he could get.

“However, strictly speaking, he is not nephilim,” Castiel noted.

“He’s part human and part angel, isn’t he?” Sam asked, puzzled.

“Yes, but he is more angel than human. Also, the manner of his creation was not the same as how the nephilim came to be. He was not born of procreation between an angel and a human… his hybrid grace was the result of an entirely angelic means of reproduction. In crude terms, he’s an angel that accidentally ended up a little bit human. The nephilim were far more human than he is.”

“Yeah, but will the other angels see the difference?” Dean ask snidely (trying not let his mind linger on the ‘angel-human procreation’ mental image).

“That I don’t know,” Castiel replied.

“Great… so on top of Lucifer, on top of the Apocalypse, on top of the archangels that want to take us for a test drive, now we have baby-killing angels to worry about.”

“Say they do consider him a nephilim,” Sam said, “how high of a priority would he be on their to do list? I mean, would it be a ‘get around to it when we have a minute’ deal, or a ‘drop everything and go medieval on his ass’ situation?”

Though if it was the latter, wouldn’t they already be knee deep in murderous angels? Best to not tempt fate with saying that one out loud.

“I truly don’t know… I’ve grown to doubt my understanding of Heaven’s motivations since I fell.”

Their food arrived and put the conversation on hold while they ate. Castiel picked at his, barely eating, and Dean had a moment of semi-panic thinking it could be the early signs of angel labor again. But Castiel looked fine… aloof, uncomfortable near the baby, but not the ‘painfully on the brink of human’ he’d looked just before he made a kid.

When they were leaving the diner, Dean handed Sam the keys and climbed in the backseat next to Cas. It was normal to them now, Castiel willingly serving as a living crib and car seat while Dean saw to the baby’s needs.

Once they were settled, Castiel held out his hands for the baby. Dean just shifted closer to Castiel, keeping the baby with him. Castiel frowned but dropped his hands. If Dean wanted the baby, Cas’s body language said that he was welcome to him. He only belatedly began watching Dean with the baby.

Dean was rubbing the little guy’s back, strangely fascinated by the feel of tiny lungs moving under tiny ribs, all wrapped in a comforting heat. Sometimes it really blew his mind to think that he and Cas _made_ this little person that hadn’t existed just two days ago.

Sam pulled back onto the highway and continued the drive toward Bobby’s.

“Hey, Cas…” Dean almost whispered.

The angel looked at him. “Yes?”

“We can’t keep calling him ‘the baby’… he needs a name.” Castiel looked uninterested at best, but Dean didn’t let that deter him. “Why don’t you pick it?”

“You wish _me_ to choose a name for him?”

“You did all the work bringing him into the world.”

The angel eyed the child dubiously. “I don’t think that qualifies me for the task… you should pick a name.”

“No, I want you to. There’s no rush… well, sometime before he’s talking would be nice. Just think about it.” Dean looked down at the baby, hoping he wasn’t dooming the kid to some crazy-ass angel name by putting it in Castiel’s hands. But even if he was, Dean could learn to live with whatever Castiel picked. He’d just think of a really kick-ass nickname.

By having Castiel choose the baby’s name, Dean hoped it would get Castiel to stop looking at the newborn like a thing and start seeing him as his son. Or, if that was asking too much, to at least start to look at the baby as something that deserved to be alive.

They’d been on the road about an hour when Castiel quietly held out his hands again for the baby. Dean’s eyebrows rose. It was the first time Castiel had asked for the baby unprompted.

Dean passed the baby over and watched curiously as Castiel held the baby up in front of him, studying him. The baby kicked his legs in the open air a moment, then he opened his eyes and returned Castiel’s intent stare. They were both stalker-intensity stares, cut from the same mould.

“I think…” Castiel frowned and looked toward Dean, “I would like to name him Daniel.”

Dean hadn’t expected Castiel to pick a name so quickly. He hadn’t expected him to pick one so _normal_. “Daniel, huh?”

“It bears a resemblance to your name as well as mine, and it is a devout name. It means ‘God is my judge’.”

Dean wasn’t sure how he felt about that (God could just keep the fuck out of Dean’s family, thank you very much), but that aside, he couldn’t complain. That Castiel chose a name that associated the baby with himself at all was even better. In fact, the more he tried it out in his head…

“I like Daniel.”

Castiel looked oddly pleased by that. 

Dean was just relieved to see Castiel cradle the baby to his chest once the naming ceremony was complete. Daniel made content little noises and snuggled up to Castiel’s body heat.

Daniel Winchester… it had a ring to it.

**********

“Maternity leave’s over, ladies.”

Bobby Singer sure had a way of easing into a conversation with all the grace of a wrecking ball. Dean frowned, one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding his cell phone to his ear. Sam (folded awkwardly in the passenger seat) had been woken from a nap by the phone call and was presently trying to unfurl his limbs. Castiel was in the back, sitting up straight and primly watching the scenery out the window. Daniel was held against his chest, and Cas made it look like a military stance. Ten-hut, present baby.

“Who’s it?” Sam asked around a yawn.

“Bobby,” he answered Sam, then turned his attention to the older hunter. “Listen, Bobby… we’re really not up to par here.” Technically, Sam was probably good to go. But Castiel had yet to resume any of his angel superpowers, and Dean still felt pretty off-kilter (what with a piece of his soul now residing in Daniel). Not to mention the big problem of how the hell to hunt with Daniel.

“Case you boys hadn’t _noticed_ , we’re sort of staring down the end of the _world_ , so nut up.” Bobby paused, and the next time he spoke, he sounded kinder. It said ‘you know I wish you could actually take the time to lick your wounds, and it kills me that you can’t’, but without actually having that mushy conversation. Bobby rocked like that. “We’ve got a huge problem in Des Moines, and since you boys are on your way here from Tennessee…”

“Yeah, we’re passing right through. Actually, I think we might be in Iowa already,” Dean conceded. “So, what kind of problem are we talking about?”

“How do roving gangs of wendigos in populated areas sound?”

“Like you’re pulling my leg.”

“I think it’s fair to say I’ve completely lost any sense of humor I had since ‘Lucifer’ and ‘Apocalypse’ became household words,” Bobby growled.

“How did wendigos even _get_ in Iowa?” Dean asked indignantly. Sam straightened up in the seat beside him. In the back, Castiel finally pulled his eyes away from the passing trees and watched Dean in the rearview mirror.

“Damned if I know… better question, since when do they run in groups of fifty plus?” Bobby countered.

“Holy shit!”

“Like I said, huge problem,” Bobby quipped dryly.

Sam was gesturing at him out of the corner of Dean’s eye, and he glanced over to see Sam making impatient ‘what, what?’ signs. Dean let go of the wheel just long enough to wave Sam off. He had to give Bobby bad news.

“If we still had a fully-charged angel with us, we might be able to deal with this,” Dean said carefully, purposefully not looking at Castiel in the rearview mirror, “but right now… Bobby, Sam and I can’t take on that big a job on our own.”

“You won’t be. Ellen and Jo are already there working the job… but you’re right about one thing – two people won’t cut it. They really need you boys.”

And now it went from just being a matter of civilians being in danger to their fellow hunters – _their friends_ – being in trouble. Crap.

“Crap.” Dean sighed. They were going to have to figure out how to hunt with a baby to look after pretty damn fast, because it was about to happen whether they wanted it to or not. “Okay, where do we meet up with them?”

“The Harvelles have set up shop in an old bar just outside of town, place kind of like the Roadhouse… I’ll get her to text you the address.”

“Great,” Dean said sarcastically.

“Never said it didn’t suck,” was all Bobby had to offer in sympathy.

Dean finally glanced up at the rearview mirror and into the backseat at Castiel. The angel looked scarily intent about something. Dean’s eyes dropped down to Daniel, perfectly cupped in Castiel’s hands.

“Did you tell Ellen or Jo about…”

Turned out that Bobby hadn’t lost his sense of humor after all… it had just taken a sadistic turn. He let out a gruff chuckle. “I’m leaving that gem for you boys to share.” With that, Bobby hung up.

“What was that about?” Sam asked immediately.

“Looks like wendigos have unionized and relocated to Des Moines… Bobby says a gang of over fifty of them are terrorizing the city.” Sam’s eyes went agog at the number. “Ellen and Jo are there, but they need our help.”

Sam was already nodding his agreement when the moment he remembered Daniel registered on his face. Sam looked over uncertainly at the baby in Castiel’s hands. “What… what are we going to do about Daniel?”

“We’ll work it out when we get there,” Dean said, trying to sound confident that a solution would make itself obvious once they reached the bar.

Because that sounded a lot better than ‘not a fucking clue’.

**********

There was a great deal about human behavior that still eluded Castiel. Even after living among them so closely, they continued to do things that confused him.

The matter of the baby was one of them.

To Castiel, the child was the odd byproduct of a selfless act on Dean’s part meant only to save Castiel’s life. Dean had no desire for offspring to result from the separation. In that, Castiel had shared the hunter’s motivations and expectations. Cheating death was the sole impetus – something in which the Winchesters seemed to be experts.

Castiel wished he could forget the shredding agony of the shattered one separating, a ball of grace that used to be part of him thrashing in an attempt to tear away from him. He’d never known pain so intense. It promised to be a truly horrible way to die. But then Dean volunteered a part of his own soul to stop the torture of being ripped in half. Castiel had pulled from Dean just enough soul, he offered it up to the shattered one, and the shattered one took the blinding chunk of soul and completed itself, abandoning its attempts to carve out of Castiel more than the angel had to spare.

All Castiel could think about at the time was how wonderful it was for the pain to stop. How liberating it felt to be free of the shattered one at last. How remarkable it was to have survived the ordeal.

He hadn’t considered what would become of the shattered one when it left him.

The shattered one made itself into the form of a human newborn. As his regard toward the shattered one had always been contentious, Castiel wondered if it chose that shape just to torment him. Because it was almost a jest, a creature so close to angel conforming itself to the natural rawness of a human newborn. It forced Castiel to deal with it even once it was gone from him, human babies helpless and needy in a way angel youths never were.

Castiel would have wanted the separation to be absolute… when the shattered one left him, he would have preferred it to leave his life entirely. It had caused enough trouble already.

But then Dean went and surprised him with yet another fit of puzzling human behavior. Dean adopted a caregiver role toward the baby. Castiel knew, of course, how strong the instinct to bond with their offspring was in humans… but somehow, he had not expected it of Dean. Not when it concerned a child so predominantly angel, created by means so far from human practices of procreation. He didn’t foresee Dean becoming attached to it.

Castiel looked at the baby and felt unease and ambivalence at best… this was something that he should not have had to endure. It was yet another reminder of how little free will Castiel had, for all his rebellion. Because God could still force this on him, without his consent. How cruel that humans had to give consent, but angels were forced into serving Heaven.

Dean saw something else when he looked at the shattered one. He saw his son. There was so little of Dean Winchester in him, but Dean claimed what small part of himself there was in the child and for that declared the boy his. It didn’t bother Castiel – if Dean wanted the shattered one to be his son, that was of no concern to Castiel, and it truly wasn’t inaccurate, _per se_ – but it was baffling.

But he wasn’t the shattered one anymore. He was Daniel. He had a name, a human one (since Dean showed so much attachment to the child, Castiel felt it only fitting the boy have a human name… his chosen name should honor the ones who cared for him).

Many of the hours spent in the car with the Winchester brothers were filled with silence (or harsh music, but Dean had not blasted loud music since the baby came). Castiel accepted the role bestowed upon him by Dean: protector of Daniel. That he could do… it was not so different from his duties while he was a warrior of God. The boy was a charge, not unlike the Winchesters themselves. It was a familiar mantel he wore easily.

But those hours trapped in the car, waiting for his ability to fly to return, meant a great deal of time interacting much more closely with the – with _Daniel_ than Castiel would have liked.

The baby was resting against Castiel’s chest, curled contently against his guardian. For something that had caused Castiel so much pain, he was so harmless now. He was a strange thing. Castiel looked at him and saw mostly himself, that autonomous piece of his grace that had separated from him in a maelstrom of pain. But he also saw the shades and shadows of Dean Winchester’s soul in Daniel. At times, if Castiel’s attention was wandering, it could catch him by surprise to look at the infant and see reflections of that soul he’d fought through Hell to save. When he did, something fierce and purely instinctive tugged inside him, that unthinking reflex he had now that told him to do whatever was necessary to protect Dean. Every so often, Daniel elicited that same response just by being part Dean.

That confused Castiel.

The brothers were talking lowly in the front seat about the wendigos they were going to hunt. Castiel heard every word – for he would do all that he could to help them – but while he listened he was staring down at Daniel. He very rarely ‘fussed’ (as Dean called it) so long as he was resting on Castiel’s chest. Their graces, once one, now danced so close together when they were chest-to-chest, and it was a haunting, nostalgic feeling to be parted from that piece of himself by the thin divide between beings, whatever metaphysical boundary dictated where Castiel ended and Daniel began.

Daniel wasn’t sleeping, just lying quietly under Castiel’s staying hand and gumming on his own fist. Castiel moved his hand, lightly stroking down the boy’s back. Daniel’s fledgling wings ruffled under the touch, flexed and moved without conscious control. Daniel liked his wings being touched. Castiel felt strangely glad that Daniel had wings… flight was one of the most glorious gifts of the angels, and it would be unfortunate if the boy couldn’t experience it.

“I think this is it,” Dean said up front, and Castiel looked away from Daniel to peer out the cracked windshield of Dean’s beloved car. An establishment named ‘The Watering Hole’ loomed before them, an ill-kept two-story building not far from the city that was crawling with wendigos… Castiel could feel them nearby, the blackened corruption of their souls clamoring for satiation, fulfillment, appeasement… cries for salvation and peace they mistakenly filled with the consuming of human flesh, further damning their souls with every act of cannibalism. The divergent ones, as angels called them… men who took an unconventional road to becoming monsters. Perhaps Lucifer had found a way to enlist new recruits without tapping Hell’s demon-producing bowels after all.

Dean parked his car between an aged truck and a distinctive vehicle that made the brothers trade wary looks. “Military?” Sam offered cautiously.

“Guess we’ll find out,” Dean grumbled. “Come on.”

Castiel tucked Daniel close and flapped his wings purposefully. He’d sensed a return of his strength for some time now, but only now did he try flying. He didn’t go far… just outside the car.

Dean exited the car and blinked to see Castiel standing outside waiting for him, baby held dutifully close. “Getting your groove back, huh?” Dean teased, then his eyes wandered to the military vehicle again. Castiel sensed agitation and unrest in the hunter. “Give Daniel to me,” he prompted. There was that peculiar instinct again, Dean wanting the baby in his arms for protection. Of course, the child was safer in Castiel’s care, but human instinct was often not rational.

As before, Castiel bowed to Dean’s instincts and passed the baby over. Daniel complained at the move at first, but he settled quickly when he was cradled against Dean’s body. 

There was definitely a difference in the way Castiel and Dean held the child. Castiel found a place for his hands that best secured the boy and did not deviate from that position. Dean’s touch was not always the safest, but it was active. It engaged, it conveyed gentleness, it expressed affection. It looked comforting; Castiel could not imagine how Daniel could ever feel alone under such doting hands.

Sometimes, Castiel felt jealous of Daniel for that. He missed the other angels a great deal… even though they were hunting him. Lucifer had been right about one thing – angels were not built to be alone.

Sam reached the door first, and he was greeted by a young blonde woman with a bandaged and bloody leg. “Sam, I saw you guys pulling up out the window. Holy _crap_ , what happened to Dean’s car?!”

“Hey, Jo… what happened to your leg?”

“Son of a bitch wendigo clawed me up pretty good.”

“Geez, are you all right?” Sam asked in genuine concern.

To Castiel, it looked like the woman was more angry about her injury than seriously damaged. But she didn’t get a chance to address it, because she looked over and saw Dean heading toward her carrying Daniel. Her face screwed. “Why do you guys have a baby with you?”

“Where’s your mom?” Dean asked instead.

Jo narrowed her eyes at him, looked pointedly at the baby, then moved her eyes past the brothers to rest on Castiel. “Who are you?”

“My name is Castiel, I’m…”

“A friend,” Dean interrupted him. “Jo… wendigos? We can catch up later.”

“Sure… come on. Mom’s in the back with Strafe talking to the major.”

It sounded like code to Castiel, but often humans spoke in strange words. Castiel followed Dean and Sam into the building. It looked like one of the liquor and recreation businesses Dean frequented. This one, however, was empty. They bypassed the bar and stools and tables and followed the limping woman toward the back of the room.

She pushed through a door and three people looked up in their direction. A woman (who bore a resemblance to Jo), a man dressed similarly to the Winchesters, and a second man in what was obviously some manner of uniform.

“Winchesters are here,” Jo stated unnecessarily as she led them inside the storage room. Stacked chairs lined the back wall, while bottles of liquor lined another. The three of them were sitting at an old wooden table.

“About time you boys showed up,” the woman groused.

“Hey, Ellen… sorry, we got here as soon as we could,” Sam placated with a smile… a familiar smile. These were friends of theirs, Castiel decided.

Ellen narrowed her eyes at Dean. “Didn’t know you boys had taken up babysitting to earn some extra money.”

Dean bristled. “Unless you have somewhere I can put him down – and someone to watch him – you’re just going to have to deal.”

Ellen’s eyebrows rose. “Right… so that’s something you’ll explain later. Boys, this here is Strafe, he owns the Watering Hole, and that there is Major Owens of the Iowa National Guard, out of Camp Dodge. Major, Strafe, these here are the Winchester boys, Dean and Sam. And I don’t know the third one.”

Castiel realized they were talking about him. He stepped forward. “My name is Castiel.” He left it at that… Dean had seemed intent to omit the fact he was an angel earlier.

Major Owens gave the lot of them a shrewd look. “And I suppose these are more _hunters_?”

“Don’t let their looks fool you, Major,” Ellen assured, “these boys are some of the best.”

“Of course… best at hunting monsters.” Major Owens turned his attention to the man next to him. “Listen, Strafe, I agreed to this meeting because we were friends in Desert Storm… I never thought you should have been Sectioned 8 out of the Army after what you went through – I always thought you just needed some help, some treatment for post-traumatic stress – but I have a serious problem in Des Moines, and I do not have time for this bullshit about monsters.”

“I wasn’t _crazy_ , Badger, that was a _demon_ out in that desert, and it would have killed me if a hunter hadn’t saved my ass. I didn’t believe in that crap before, but you see it for yourself and it changes your mind. My mistake was telling the evac team about it… but I’m telling you, this stuff is real, and we can help.”

“You think you can do what an entire unit of the Army National Guard can’t against these sick fucks?”

“You really think they’re _human_? What the hell kind of human can withstand gunfire, move at the speed these things do or rip a man to pieces like these things can?”

The major went tensely quiet. “We’ve given the media strict orders not to let any of that get out; we don’t want to cause a panic. How the hell do you know about that?”

“Because we’ve all dealt with wendigos before,” Ellen interjected in a very authoritative tone. “This is our area of expertise, Major Owens, and we’re just trying to work together to keep people alive.”

“No offense, ma’am, but you don’t look like professionals of anything more than pool hustling and breaking up bar brawls.”

“We know how to hunt wendigos,” Jo snapped peevishly.

Major Owens smiled. “I’m sure you do, miss.” Even Castiel could hear the condescension in his tone. “I have to get back to my unit. I’m warning you, Strafe, I better not see you in Des Moines. We’ve got the city locked down under some bogus riot cover story, but I see your ass anywhere near there, I’ll shoot you myself. These bastards aren’t fucking around; they’ll kill you in a heartbeat.”

“I know more about them than you do, Badger,” Strafe seethed. “If we can prove to you what these things are and that we know how to fight them, will you listen to us? We have plan, but we don’t have the manpower to pull it off. We need your men.”

Castiel understood that the major crux of this impasse was that the man in a position of military power doubted the existence of the wendigos they had come to hunt. _That_ he could do something about. He moved forward, around Dean, and asked Ellen directly, “Do you have an incendiary agent on hand?”

Ellen looked at him, startled. “Sure, I got my lighter with me… why?”

Castiel didn’t answer, he just took wing.

He was in Des Moines in a millisecond, plunging into the heart of the darkness brought to it by the massive concentration of wendigos. 

It was his first honest attempt at flying since the separation, and it felt exhilarating after being grounded so long.

But in the same second that he felt alacrity at free flight, he was overwhelmed by a great sense of distress. He was thrown by the pulse of panic, the sense of having gone too far, being out of range, being parted from something that belonged close.

He pushed the strange feelings aside and found the first wendigo he could. They might be fast, but angels were far faster. The wendigo screeched and tried to flee when it saw the angel… Castiel was heat and brightness and God’s wrath, and the wendigo sensed that and ran scared.

Castiel reached out, snatched the wendigo up effortlessly, then he flitted back to the bar and dropped the wendigo in the middle of the room.

The humans in the room bolted back from the monster suddenly in their midst. Jo let loose a very crude, “ _fucking son of a whore_!” and ran for the shelves of liquor bottles. The major was reaching for his gun in a frenzy. Strafe went running for something in the back of the room. Sam and Ellen were shoving hands into their pockets looking for lighters. Dean… Dean was not joining the fight. He had backed away hurriedly. He hugged the wall, turned his back to the creature, and crouched down, covering Daniel’s head with one hand.

The wendigo had gotten its bearings and was twisting, looking among them and deciding which prey to lunge at first. Jo lobbed a bottle of alcohol at the wendigo, which shattered against the monster in an explosion of glass and amber liquid that quickly soaked the wendigo.

It was hard to say if it was Sam or Ellen’s lighter that hit the wendigo first. In any case, it went up in flames. It didn’t burn long, because it screeched and flamed out… as wendigos did. Soon it was only a smoldering pile of ash in a burning pile of broken table.

Strafe came back with a fire extinguisher in hand and had the fire doused in seconds. The whole thing had happened in a very short amount of time. Castiel trusted it was a suitably convincing demonstration.

When it was over, Ellen looked long and hard at Castiel, trying to gauge him. Then her attention turned to Major Owens. “Enough proof for you that we’re not off our collective rockers?”

Major Owens just gaped for a second, but he recovered rather quickly. “Shit, what the… all right, fine. You’ve got my ear. What’s this plan of yours?”

“Dean?” Sam was speaking lowly, carefully, and Castiel looked toward the hunter, worried by the tone of Sam’s voice.

Dean was standing up slowly. Daniel was crying, a distressed howl, quite different from his cry for food or complaint of being soiled. Dean looked furious. He shook his head shortly at Sam, then locked his eyes on Castiel. The hunter’s look was nearly murderous.

He marched up into Castiel’s space and growled, “Outside, _now_.”

Castiel went. He was waiting in the empty main room when Dean marched out of the storage room and stormed toward Castiel, Daniel still apoplectic in his arms.

“You’re angry,” Castiel noted.

“Angry doesn’t even come close! What the fuck did you think you were doing back there?”

He didn’t understand how his actions had been difficult to interpret. “I surmised that the reason this Major Owens would not offer his assistance in dealing with the wendigo problem was his disbelief that they were real, so I…”

“So you grab up one of those things and just drop it in the same room with Daniel?!”

Castiel frowned. “He wasn’t harmed.”

“That’s not the point! You had a wendigo looking for a scratching post, a whiskey-fueled flash fire, and an Army major ready to start shooting up the place. What would make you think for even a second it would be safe to put Daniel in the middle of that?” Castiel suspected Dean might have yelled at him much longer, but Dean’s raised voice only seemed to further upset Daniel. The baby was screaming mightily by then. Dean turned from Castiel in disgust and directed his efforts toward soothing the child. “Shhh… shhh… it’s okay, Castiel just screwed up, but you’re all right, Daniel… everything’s okay, shhh…”

Castiel felt something in him hitch at the fact Dean had referred to him by his full name. Once, the nickname ‘Cas’ had been arresting for its oddness, but now it drew Castiel up short when Dean called him ‘Castiel’. He began to understand that he had angered Dean, yes, but even more than he’d angered him, he’d _scared_ him. Though there had never been a moment when Castiel could not have incinerated the wendigo in less than a second if it looked about to harm anyone, Dean wasn’t thinking of that. He was surfing on adrenaline and instinct, reacting to a perceived deadly threat to his son.

Castiel took a step toward him. “Dean… I apologize.”

“That’s it? You _apologize_?” Dean looked wired, strung out on the fight or flight reflex – an amplified version, for it was clearly so much worse when it was on behalf of one’s offspring.

“I would not have permitted the wendigo to harm Daniel. Or any of you. But I…” should have taken into account the reactive animal that humans are, “should not have brought such a dangerous creature into the room with Daniel.”

Dean sighed. “I know you don’t get it, Cas, but you just can’t _do that_.”

“It will not happen again,” Castiel promised. Then he looked at Daniel, still wailing piteously in Dean’s arms. “May I?”

Dean looked over at him, surprised to see him asking for Daniel. After a brief moment of hesitation, Dean gave him the crying baby. Daniel was bursting with confusion and fear, not knowing what had happened, but knowing his caregiver was distraught. Castiel brought Daniel to his chest and held him there, wondering how he might calm the baby. He stroked a hand over the boy’s wings. Once. Twice. By the third time, Daniel’s cries had dropped off and his shaking subsided.

Dean was watching him, his mouth a tense, thin line. But a strange thing happened… the calmer Daniel became, the more Dean relaxed. It was as if they were two components in a feedback loop. 

Castiel was just relieved he had placated both of them.

When Daniel was quiet again, Dean snorted. “For being so disinterested, you really are good with him.”

Castiel didn’t know how to feel about that. Instead, he just responded with, “He likes having his wings stroked.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “He has wings?” Before Castiel could answer, Dean said under his breath, “Of course he does, he’s your son.” 

Castiel wanted to correct him that Daniel was _Dean’s_ son, by choice and by virtue of the parent-offspring bond, but before he could, Dean stepped forward and brought up his hand. He rested his fingers lightly against Daniel’s back, staring wistfully at the baby. Castiel knew Dean could not see Daniel’s wings, nor feel them. The hunter lowered his hand with a small sigh.

The storage room door opened and Ellen came out. She spotted Castiel and Dean and strode over to them. She stopped next to them, leveled a look at Castiel, then turned to Dean. “Bobby said you boys were carousing with an angel.” She glanced back at Castiel. “I take it that’s you?”

“I’m an angel of the Lord,” Castiel said in confirmation. It felt like it didn’t mean what it used to, though.

Ellen looked like she was inclined to reserve judgment, then she quirked an eyebrow. “Well, if you can pull off stunts like that, I’m damn glad to have you on our side.” Her eyes fell to the baby and her expression screwed. She turned a steady look on Dean. “He yours?”

“Yeah,” Dean replied.

Ellen looked back pointedly at Castiel holding the child. 

Castiel concluded she was a very keen, astute human being.

“And his,” Dean added.

Castiel didn’t argue.

Ellen sighed. “You know, it’s not even my business, but… all right, fine. We’re about to go over Operation Wendigo Inferno, figured you might want to be there for it.”

“Absolutely. Let’s go, Cas.” 

Castiel nodded and wordlessly returned Daniel to Dean. Dean hadn’t expected it at first, but he seemed pleased to take the child back.

Castiel noticed Dean meaningfully stroking Daniel’s back as they moved toward the strategy meeting.

**********

“Oh no, no way… do I look like a babysitter?”

Jo was putting up a spirited fight, but her mother was not to be outdone. 

“What you _look like_ , Joanna Beth, is a non-com,” Ellen returned, gesturing at Jo’s wounded leg. “We need every fit and able body on this one that we can get, and it doesn’t make sense to make Dean or Sam stay here to watch the baby when they’d do us more good out there.”

Jo crossed her arms with a grunt. “This sucks.”

“Welcome to the end of the world,” Sam quipped. When Jo shot him a scathing look, Sam shrugged. “Hey… if it helps, he’s a really good baby. You shouldn’t have any trouble with him.” Sam didn’t see whatever withering look Jo might have sent his way for that, because he was busy frowning down at his clothes. Major Owens’ quartermaster didn’t have any fatigues on hand on such short notice that would fit Sam, so he looked like the Army had gone three-quarter sleeve, Capri-style fatigues.

“I don’t see why this is necessary,” Dean bitched a few feet away. Even though his at least fit.

The Watering Hole was packed with Army troops, prepping for what Ellen had dubbed ‘Operation Wendigo Inferno’ (which sounded like a bad 70’s B horror flick to Sam)… and part of that operation involved having Sam and Dean dress the part.

“You’re one whiny princess, you know that, Winchester?” Major Owens snapped back.

Sam bit his cheek to keep from smiling.

At that, Dean had himself an appropriately royal hissy fit. “Hey, we’ve hunted our fair share of these things, and they never cared if we looked like G.I. Joe.”

“Maybe _they_ don’t, but we have a whole city on lockdown, people trapped in their homes, scared and many of them armed. A lot of them haven’t seen one of these so-called rioters yet, so the fatigues aren’t so you feel like you’re being all you can be, it’s so some nervous homeowner is less likely to shoot you out their living room window.”

Dean shut up at that, but he still looked really annoyed that he looked like an upstanding member of society in desert camo fatigues and boots. At first blush, desert camo seemed an odd choice for Iowa, but they weren’t trying to blend in on this particular occasion… they wanted to stand out. And the pale colors would best reflect firelight.

“You sure we have enough torches for everyone?” Sam heard Ellen ask Strafe. He, too, was geared up for the op, though he actually looked like he wore it with ease. “Got sixty-odd torches, two hundred flares, two dozen flare guns, some of them boys have flame-throwers,” Strafe sounded envious of that, “and enough Bics to make a smokers’ convention pea green. Say we’re set for a good wendigo roast.”

Ellen slipped her own lighter into her BDU jacket and gave a harrumph that sounded eerily like Bobby. “Don’t forget we’re going to be in heavy civilian territory… we start the wrong fire, we could hurt a lot of people.”

Because the mob of wendigos wasn’t enough to worry about.

Dean wandered over, still morose from his tongue-lashing from the major. It was a rare person who could get one over on the unflappable Dean Winchester, and Sam couldn’t deny a smidgen of little brother delight at the seeing the tall poppy take a whack to the head. 

“With these old-school torches,” Dean commented, “it’s going to look like we’re the angry villagers from those black and white horror movies.”

“As long as it gets the wendigos on the move,” Strafe said.

Operation Wendigo Inferno was, without doubt, the most coordinated, involved, and large-scale hunt the Winchesters had ever been on, if only because hunters rarely worked in teams much bigger than four (they were, by and large, a prickly, antisocial bunch). It was definitely the first time they’d worked alongside the military on a hunt. 

But the scale of the problem in Des Moines called for desperate measures.

In a nutshell, the plan was to wait until sundown to get into position. The urban wendigos took to ground during the day, uncomfortable outside their woodland environment, but they came out at night in force. The troops and hunters would form a large living corral around the most concentrated areas of wendigo activity (presently, a southwest quadrant of the city). After nightfall, once the wendigos were in the open and on the move, the fire-wielding soldiers and hunters would start constricting the human noose, driving the wendigos ahead of them. Any that were killed in the process were gravy, but herding them was the main goal. In a neglected lot out the outskirts of town, an abandoned building had been filled with gas cans, stacks of newspapers, and gunpowder… a veritable matchbox, primed to go up in flames (and hopefully far enough away that civilians would be in a minimal amount of danger from the blaze). When the wendigos had been pushed into the building and cornered, the fire would be ignited, and they’d watch a building full of wendigos burn.

It sounded easy enough, but when did any hunt go off without a hitch?

The most critical (and most secretive) part of the plan rested on Castiel’s shoulders. The troops were confident they could herd the enemy without trouble, but the hunters knew better. Wendigos were fast… they could give humans the slip and outrun them any day of the week. But they couldn’t run faster than an angel could fly. And since Castiel was back to flying, he was critical for them to pull this off. If they had to crunch numbers on the distribution of labor for this operation, the credit for this hunt (if it worked) would be seventy percent Castiel’s victory. He would be the one truly rounding up wendigos, forcing them into the holding pen of torches brandished by the humans. And while the humans were handling the masses, Castiel would monitor the perimeter, picking off stragglers, escapees, and making sure the fallible human line did not break.

The only ones who knew about Castiel’s role, though, were the hunters. The truth about Castiel’s identity hadn’t been revealed to Major Owens, but he kept a wary eye on Castiel whenever they were in the same room… he’d seen the angel’s disappearing-reappearing act earlier, and he knew something was unusual about Castiel. For a guy who just found out the true nature of wendigos, anything outside the sphere of normal was highly suspect.

Though Sam speculated that Major Owens was prone to be suspicious, wendigos aside.

Major Owens looked toward the dying light coming through the windows, then down at his watch. “All right, Team One, grab your torches, head out, and get into position. Team Two, I want you ready to move out in ten minutes. Let’s go!”

Castiel was suddenly at Dean’s side, Daniel in his arms. Major Owens caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye, glanced over, and gave Castiel a measuring, suspicious look. It probably also didn’t help that no amount of staring could browbeat Castiel into donning fatigues… among a sea of Mojave drab, he was a sore thumb in his suit and trench coat.

“I don’t think he likes you much,” Strafe said, drolly stating the spectacularly obvious.

“Our ability to establish a meaningful friendship is immaterial to our mission,” Castiel replied evenly. When the major continued to give Castiel his best scary-major stare, Castiel gave him a scary-angel stare right back. Dean smirked when the major was the one who backed down. Sam didn’t blame him… when Cas wanted to be scary, he was _really_ scary. Hard to believe when he just looked like this slim tax accountant to the inattentive eye.

“You sure you’re up for this?” Dean asked the angel softly.

Castiel gave him a measured look.

“Just that you only got back in the air today… and this is going to be logging a lot of flight time on your part.”

“I am still a weapon against evil; I will not fail.” Castiel sounded predictably miffed that his abilities to tackle dark forces would be called into question. Then he paused and glanced down hesitantly at Daniel. “What are we going to do with Daniel?”

“I’m going to watch him,” Jo said grudgingly, limping forward to take the baby. Castiel glanced at Dean and waited for the nod from him before he passed the baby into Jo’s arms. She looked down at Daniel a moment, then cracked a smile, despite doing her best to remain disgruntled about babysitting duty. “Okay, fine… he _is_ cute.”

“Yep, total lady-killer,” Dean quipped. Then he looked toward Strafe. “Yo, Strafe… you wouldn’t happen to have a little travel hooch, would ya? One for the road?”

Strafe opened his mouth to answer…

… but didn’t get a word in edgewise.

“You really think a drink’s a good idea right now?” Ellen lectured, all the brunt of her motherly disapproval looming. It was even enough to buckle Dean… but then, Sam noticed his brother had always been a little bit afraid of Ellen Harvelle. 

“Oh, come on… just one? Have a heart, Ellen; it looks like it’s shaping up to be a really long night.”

Sam got the feeling Dean would be proven right very soon.

**********

Dawn was breaking red and orange, making it look like the burning building had caught the sky on fire. From within, the inhuman chorus of wendigos igniting and flaming out was a haunting dirge to welcome the day. There had been moments when Sam doubted that the night would ever end. 

The strident scent of burnt human hair mingled with the smell of human sweat as a wall of steely-eyed fighters stood nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, watching the monsters inside burn. Sam looked among their faces, and they were all masks, homogenous faces with glittering dark eyes and stony expressions. Some were bloody. Others sullied with dirt or soot. Sam could see the burns on some of their limbs… the danger of using such an indiscriminant weapon like fire – it didn’t care who it harmed.

Sam glanced toward the engulfed building. He saw dark figures through the fire-curtains in the windows, writhing and flailing, skinny hands and savage claws raking blindly to fend off death. The choir song of screams sent a chill down Sam’s spine. He could feel his heart still pounding in his chest… he wondered how long it would take to go back to normal. Right now, it felt like it never would. The combat-readiness of the long hours, the endless fight against the darkness and its beasts, was still too raw and close. The tickle of smoke would stay in his lungs for days, no doubt.

Sam looked over at his brother. Dean was standing awkwardly, favoring a vicious wound on his shoulder. His desert camo jacket was torn and stained dark with blood. Sam remembered what had happened all too vividly… they’d been moving through an alleyway, Dean leading with fire, Sam covering their asses with fire. Suddenly, Dean had yelled, and Sam whirled to find a wendigo had dropped a clawed hand on his shoulder, almost like he was trying to get Dean’s attention. Then it had ripped, tearing jacket, shirt, and flesh alike. Sam shoved his torch in its face, and it let go and ran, but not before Dean was hurt.

But although Dean was holding his shoulder oddly, he didn’t seem to really notice the pain. He was watching the bonfire rage, consuming the enemy. It wasn’t the first house Dean had watched burn… the first had been their own. Sam wondered why they seemed so eternally plagued by fire.

The hunters – and for that moment, they were all hunters – stood mesmerized and watched the building start to collapse on itself. Strafe and Ellen were standing to Sam’s left. Strafe was holding his right arm to his body like it was broken. Ellen had a dried trial of blood tracing a line from her nose to upper lip, and a real shiner of a black eye was blooming on the right side of her face. Sam felt like he’d gotten off light; he’d suffered only a minor burn to his arm. But they all looked like shades of hell, various degrees of banged up and battered.

Until Castiel was suddenly there, looking windswept but otherwise nonplussed, trench coat and suit as clean as ever.

Dean looked over at him. “Hey, Cas… is that all of them?” He jerked his head toward the fire.

Castiel glanced at Dean, hesitating a fraction of a second to frown at Dean’s bleeding shoulder. Then he cast his eyes toward the crumbling building. “That’s all of them.”

“Good.” Dean seemed to ratchet down from combat ready, letting a hint of his exhaustion and pain show. He looked over the angel. “You okay?”

It was almost laughable… Castiel was the only one of them who didn’t look like he’d gone three rounds with a Tasmanian devil. Castiel scowled again at Dean’s shoulder. “You’re hurt.”

“Nothing a band-aide won’t fix,” he said, dismissive (noticeably _not_ including a devil-may-care shrug), but he didn’t try to escape Castiel’s hand when the angel reached for his shoulder. With great care, he peeled away the torn material of Dean’s clothes and studied the slashed flesh underneath. Dean grit his teeth but held himself still for inspection.

The angel scowled. “This is more serious than can be treated with a small adhesive bandage.”

Dean’s eyes crinkled. “Hey, I’m just impressed you know what a band-aide is.” Dean pinched his lips, and Sam knew the signs of brother-in-pain. “Don’t suppose you could fix it up, could you?”

Something remorseful flickered through Castiel’s fire-kissed gaze. He glanced surreptitiously at the long chain of people surrounding the fire, nearly all of them to a person wounded in some way. Castiel dropped his voice. “I’m not strong enough to heal them all.” Then he regarded Dean intently, falling easily into that habit he had of looking at Dean like he was the answer to the mysteries of the universe. His expression twitched almost painfully, and he snaked up a hand and rested his palm against the side of Dean’s neck. Sam knew the second the injury was gone, because Dean’s posture straightened and the ashen tinge to his face disappeared.

Castiel withdrew his hand with care, trying not to draw attention to what he’d done as he studied Dean. Sam smiled a little, despite it all. Castiel couldn’t stand seeing Dean in pain.

Ellen snorted to Sam’s left.

They were joined a moment later by Major Owens. He’d taken a claw to the face… three jagged cuts slashed at angles from his hairline to chin… Sam could swear he saw the bloody bone-shine of a tooth through the damage done to the major’s bottom lip.

“Evey’un ‘lright?” he asked at great pains, his speech butchered by the ruin of his mouth.

“We’re all okay,” Strafe answered his old friend, despite the way he was cradling his arm.

Major Owens took stock for himself, eyes resting on each of them in turn. When his eyes landed on Castiel, the major glared mistrustfully. It seemed unfair to Sam… Cas was the reason this Operation Wendigo Inferno had worked, but because he was so plainly not human, he was one heartbeat away from no better than the wendigos in the officer’s eyes.

If Sam ever wanted to see where the hunter’s world began and normal people’s ended, there it was.

“How about your men, Badger?” Strafe asked.

Major Owens broke eye contact with Cas and sighed, offering up a ‘so-so’ hand see-saw motion that didn’t require him to talk. Next, he hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward the building. The screaming had slowly died out as the wendigos did. Now it was just the crackling of the fire and the moaning of the building buckling. In the distance, Sam thought he could hear the sirens of a fire truck.

The major’s wordless gesture was unclear to Sam, but Strafe got the meaning. “That was the lot of them.”

Owens didn’t question how Strafe knew that… he just accepted it. He blinked slowly, nodded, then gave Strafe and his team a weary thumb’s up and turned around to return to his men.

The soldiers were starting to break ranks, sensing that their enemies were dead and their mission complete. The living fence line broke apart, and comrades began to seek one another out, assessing injuries and doing a headcount of missing friends.

It left the hunters huddled together, separate.

“Anyone seriously hurt?” Ellen asked the moment they were left to tend their own. Strafe brushed off Ellen’s attempts to assess the extent of the damage to his arm. She gave him a disapproving glower for being an obstinate ass, then her eyes landed on Dean and his conspicuously blood-drenched shoulder. “Dean?”

Dean rolled his shoulder tenderly to prove just how undamaged he was. “I’m fine… just a scratch.”

Ellen looked dubious at first, then she glanced speculatively at Castiel standing at Dean’s side. She finally gave a curt nod. “All right, let’s head back to the Watering Hole, _take care of any broken limbs_ , get cleaned up, and get some sleep.”

“I don’t have beds enough for everyone,” Strafe threw in guiltily. He lived above the bar, and Sam had walked through the living space earlier… there really wasn’t much to it.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to turn up their nose at a clean spot on the floor,” Ellen quipped. 

Hell, Sam thought he could fall asleep on his feet if everyone would stop talking for a few minutes. All-nighters were common for hunters, but that didn’t make them any less draining. A lumpy pillow and a place to stretch out on the floor sounded awesome.

“Right,” Dean stifled a yawn. “We’ll grab some sleep, then head on to Bobby’s.”

“There is something here I still need to attend to before I leave,” Castiel said, matter-of-fact.

“Ah, crap… don’t tell me more wendigos…” Dean groaned.

Castiel cocked his head. “No… at least, not yet. But there is the matter of how this infestation could have happened in the first place. Wendigos are extremely uncommon creatures – fifty-seven should have accounted for the entire population of them in the North American continent, not the concentration one would find in a single city.”

“Yeah, no one’s arguing the what the fuckery of _that_ ,” Dean snorted. “So, you have any idea how this happened?” Dean sounded like he really didn’t want to hear it, even if Castiel did have a good guess. Dean didn’t look like he was up for anything but crashing for a few hours. Sam was with his brother on this one… talking bad, sleep good. Sleep now good.

“Perhaps,” Castiel postulated anyway. “Do you remember me speculating that Lucifer might try to find a way to bolster his ranks on earth without tapping into his resources in Hell?”

“Shit,” Sam hissed when he realized what Castiel was saying.

“No way,” Dean said.

“Wendigos do not have the same abilities as demons, nor their obedience to Lucifer’s commands, but they are a rough earthbound approximation… possibly close enough to serve his purposes.”

“You boys talking Lucifer like _the Devil_?” Strafe asked.

“Yeah… our lives _really_ suck,” Dean replied.

“You saying this was literally the work of the Devil?” Ellen asked grimly.

“I suspect so. And if there is something nearby that is accelerating the process by which a human being becomes a wendigo, it must be destroyed.”

“Or else this was just a temporary fix at best,” Sam groaned, waving feebly at the fire. He had no interest in coming back again for a recreation of this miserable night. This was definitely one crappy 70’s horror movie that did _not_ need a sequel.

“While I was in flight, I saw what appeared to be several underground tunnel systems,” Castiel began.

“How the hell did you have time to notice anything up there with all the wendigo-wrangling you were doing?” Strafe asked, incredulous.

“ _Angel_ ,” Dean retorted smugly.

Castiel glanced between the two, then settled his eyes on Strafe. “Are you familiar with those tunnels I saw?”

“Well, sure… Des Moines was big time coal mining territory way back in the day, but all the mines were closed by the early 1900s. I imagine the mine shafts are still there, though… not that _I’ve_ ever gone spelunking in them.”

“Well, we know wendigos like them,” Sam noted.

“And such a large network hidden from the public’s sight would be an ideal location for transforming humans to wendigos,” Castiel mused aloud, rolling the idea over like a cat with a mouse, deciding on the best way to go in for the kill.

Dean frowned. “But those wendigos had to come from _people_. Wouldn’t fifty missing people be noticed?”

Would they, Sam wondered. “Hey, Strafe… Des Moines have any homeless?”

“Well, sure, what city doesn’t?” Then Strafe’s face went slack. “Oh, _hell_.”

“What?” Ellen asked.

“Well, I go into Des Moines about once a week for supplies, and the places I go, I usually see my fair share of homeless on the streets… but I can’t remembering seeing one in at least a month.”

“Well, now we know where the human dough for baking a wendigo came from,” Dean groused tiredly.

Castiel was gazing out into the lightening sky, pensive and focused. Unlike the rest of them, the all-nighter did not seem to be dragging on him. He didn’t look at Dean as he spoke to him, “You and Sam may continue the journey to Bobby’s without me… I’ll stay behind to eliminate this threat.”

Sam saw Dean immediately open his mouth to say something, to protest, to complain… but before a sound escaped, he snapped his jaw shut and looked crossly at Castiel. Then he grunted. “Yeah, sure… you have your phone with you?”

Castiel nodded.

“Then remember to check in. We’ll call you when we get to Bobby’s.”

Sam wondered if Castiel could hear the tension in Dean’s voice. Probably not. But boy, Sam did. He suspected he knew why, too… but there wasn’t a chance in hell he would mention it.

In the next moment, Castiel was gone, leaving Strafe, Ellen, Sam, and Dean swaying on their feet, drained and barely awake. Strafe snorted in the wake of Castiel’s disappearance. “Don’t know how you guys ever get used to that.”

“You wouldn’t believe half the weird shit that doesn’t even phase us anymore,” Dean countered wearily.

Sam wished it wasn’t so painfully true.

**********

“Geez, he’s _fussy_ ,” Jo griped as she tried to get Daniel to settle down. She was standing near the counter in Strafe’s kitchen while Dean washed out the bottle he’d just used to feed the baby. He glanced over at Jo, who looked grouchy. Daniel wasn’t exactly being his usual endearing self. Jo was swaying side to side with the baby held against her, petting his dark hair to soothe him, but Daniel wasn’t having any of it. He was teetering on the edge of crying again, and he gave Jo several kicks in the ribs while she rocked him.

He was definitely cranky. Sam had suggested that Daniel was picking up on Dean’s bad mood. Dean didn’t remember his response to that, exactly, but he thought it might have involved a middle finger.

Dean put the clean bottle on the counter to dry and stepped toward Jo to take the baby from her. “Sorry… he’s usually better than this.” 

Jo was more than happy to hand Daniel over. The baby hiccupped himself into a brief crying fit until Dean had situated him snuggly against his chest. There he quieted, but didn’t settle. Dean could feel the tension still knotted up in the little guy’s body, just on the brink of spilling out.

Jo pushed a strand of hair out of her face and huffed. “Now I know why Mom _really_ wanted me to babysit him… she’s not going to have to worry about grandkids for a long time, that’s for sure.”

Dean scowled and rubbed his hand up and down Daniel’s back. He wondered if the boy could feel it against his wings, or if the touch had to be angel to touch the angel part of him. All Dean felt was Daniel’s curved, warm back and the tense breathing while he contemplated crying. “He’s normally pretty laidback.” And a love-bug, what with his fondness for being cuddled.

“Maybe he’s colicky,” Ellen offered as she wandered into the kitchen. “Jo was a nightmare when she would get colic.”

“ _Mom_.”

Ellen moved up alongside Dean and lifted a hand to press her fingers to Daniel’s face. As she did, she asked, “Does he have a fever?”

Daniel whined and moved away from Ellen’s hand, tucking his face into Dean’s chest to hide. Ellen, at least, didn’t seem to take the slight personally. “Feels okay. Course, I can only advise you on human stuff… if he has angel diaper rash, you’re on your own on that one.”

And Castiel would rather be rooting around abandoned coal mines looking for wendigos.

“How was his appetite?” Ellen asked, eyeing the drying bottle on the counter.

“About the same as always… maybe a little less.” Dean craned his neck to look down at Daniel, as if that eerie Castiel-like stare of his could give him a clue what was going on with the little guy. What he noticed instead was Ellen watching him thoughtfully, head canted and a half-smirk of disbelief on her lips.

“What?” he asked defensively.

“Nothing,” she said. But that was bullshit. She shook her head. “Just never thought I’d see the day… Dean Winchester, a father. Strange as it seems, and screwed up as it was how you went about it, you’re good at it.”

For a second, he forgot he was in a bad mood.

“So…” Jo hedged awkwardly, “does that make Castiel, like, Daniel’s ‘mother’ or what?”

“Cas is the one who had him,” Dean answered immediately, because he wanted it to be known that if anyone was the dad, it was definitely Dean. No way was he _Mom_. “But it’s not really the same… I guess, technically, he doesn’t have a ‘mom’ so much as an angel parent.” Which sounded even weirder than it seemed in Dean’s head… there was a reason he hadn’t been giving much thought to what Daniel’s family tree looked like.

“You Winchesters never could do things the easy way,” Ellen quipped. Then she nodded at her daughter to get her attention, “Jo, I need you to come help me inventory ammunition, see where last night’s shindig leaves us.”

“Okay.” She sounded far more eager to do that than watch after the baby.

With that, the Harvelles left Dean alone in the kitchen.

Dean leaned back against the counter, barely touching his chin to the top of Daniel’s head. He tried not to feel annoyed at Castiel for ditching the second he had his wings in working order again. Really, he should have expected it. Castiel had been trying to put distance between himself and Daniel from the minute he was born. Dean had tried to get Castiel to bond with the baby (though why he tried, he wasn’t really sure), but the angel seemed impervious. And now he was gone.

Well, not gone, hunting, but oddly it felt close enough to count.

Daniel whimpered and squirmed against Dean.

“It’s okay,” Dean murmured, stroking Daniel’s back, “you still got me.”

Dean hadn’t expected to take to parenthood at all. It just kind of snuck up and blindsided him when he noticed how naturally he’d fallen into the role. Sam was the only one who hadn’t seemed surprised to see his brother go easily into daddy-mode. When Dean gave him a ‘what the fuck, man’ look for that, Sam just snorted and said, “Hell, Dean, you raised _me_ … you were daddy material since you were four.”

Much as Dean thought John deserved _some_ credit for raising Sam, he couldn’t exactly say Sam was wrong.

So maybe it wasn’t so much surprise that he was capable as it was bemusement that he constantly had to remind himself not to look like he enjoyed it. Because he kind of did. Apocalypse and shitty timing and weird-ass circumstances aside, part of him liked having a son.

“Hey…”

Dean looked up and saw Sam enter the kitchen.

“He finally settle down?” Sam asked with a chin-point at Daniel.

“A little.”

“How’s the shoulder?”

Dean moved it experimentally. Castiel had healed most of the damage done by the wendigo’s claws, but it wasn’t a miraculous full recovery like the angel used to manage before falling. Dean’s neck and shoulder muscles were sore as hell, and the place where the open wounds had been were a palette of blue, brown, and purple bruises. “Better than having to get it stitched,” Dean answered truthfully.

Sam came up alongside Dean and grunted. “I guess if Cas couldn’t completely wave away a few scratches, fixing up Bobby’s probably not in the cards.”

Dean hadn’t thought of that, but Sam had a point. Dean rolled his shoulder and winced. “Doubt it, if this is the best he could do on my shoulder. Guess some of those diminished powers weren’t just because of Daniel.” Dean thought a second. “Or maybe giving so much of his grace to make Daniel drained some of his angel mojo.” He glanced over at his brother. “Everything packed up?”

“Yeah…” Sam frowned. “You know, we could hang around a couple of days to wait for Cas… in case he needs help with the wendigo stuff.”

Dean narrowed his eyes at Sam’s ill-disguised lie. And he resented the fact that apparently he was that transparent in his brooding about Castiel’s indifference to taking on a parent role. 

And Dean wouldn’t give a shit, really, if it weren’t for the fact he felt really under-qualified to raise an angel without an angel on hand for backup when inhuman crap started happening. Like what the fuck was he supposed to do when Daniel actually started _using_ his wings?

“Cas can take care of himself… no reason for us to stick around.”

Sam’s look said ‘you don’t buy that anymore than I do,’ but he didn’t say it aloud. What he said instead was, “It’s not like Bobby’s sounded the alarm…”

As if on cue, Sam’s phone began to ring. Daniel flinched and threatened to cry at the sound.

“Jinx,” Dean tossed out flippantly, already starting to frown.

Sam grimaced and answered his phone without looking at the caller ID, “Hey, Bobby… oh, just a bad feeling and a good guess. What’s up?” His eyes widened a little. “Really? No, of course. Yeah, we’ll be there as soon as we can.” He hung up the phone and turned toward Dean.

“What did he say?” Dean asked, spine tensing in anticipation.

“Bobby thinks he may have found a way to rob an archangel of his sword.”

Dean’s eyebrows rose. Amid everything else, he’d forgotten Bobby was looking into that. “Seriously?”

“That’s what he said.” Sam sounded cautiously optimistic… they were due some good news, after all.

Dean pushed off the counter. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get on the road.” Besides, if they could ever actually manage to get to the salvage yard, Dean could finally replace his poor baby’s windows. It physically hurt to see her in such bad shape.

Sam’s eyes flicked down to rest fleetingly on Daniel, then he looked back at Dean and nodded. “Sure… I’ll just go tell Jo, Ellen, and Strafe that we’re heading out.”


	2. Chapter 2

Even as he was tearing it down, Castiel had to admire the complexity and ingenuity of the means by which Lucifer had been turning human beings into wendigos. A process that usually took hundreds of years had been manipulated to occur over a span of weeks.

Of course, the humans trapped within the invention did not feel it as weeks. To them, it did last centuries. If Castiel had questioned Lucifer’s involvement in the wendigo explosion before, he no longer doubted it once he found the source of the transformations. 

Buried deep within one of the largest mines was a dark place where time raced ahead of the world. It pulled and bulged with time in defiance of itself. Only an angel could have manipulated time and contained it in a small area. There, the transients who had either been lured or dragged underground lived months in minutes.

Within that pocket of time out of sync, it was a frozen tundra. It was an arid wasteland. It was a sealed bunker with barren shelves in place of supplies. It was all of them and none, the embodiment of every nightmare of starvation the human mind could conjure. And it preyed on those humans already sensitive to the horror of going hungry.

Inside, Castiel found various humans in different stages of metamorphosis from man to wendigo. He saw the drawn cheekbones and bulging eyes of starving men tearing off pieces of their own clothing to eat. He saw humans gone feral, naked with wild eyes. He saw those who had succumbed, sinking teeth into human flesh and gulping down hot mouthfuls of bloody meat. He saw wendigos, gaunt, narrow creatures with tearing claws and frothing jaws.

It was a terrarium of tortured souls, a study in the entire progression from human to inhuman. Castiel, an avid studier of mankind, watched the living timeline inside for a moment. It was morbidly fascinating.

Then he took his sword in hand and set to tearing it all down. He breached the barrier holding time hostage, and the years and decades collided together in an atomic rush, crashing and breaking until the pieces fell scattered over normal time. The wendigos and doomed men were suddenly standing with Castiel in real time. Some sensed his holiness, his burning grace, and recoiled. Some, mostly human, tried to plead to him for food. Others saw him as food.

Castiel lost track of time, normal or otherwise, as he set himself to smiting every single living creature that had been held prisoner in Lucifer’s wendigo-manufacturing phenomenon. The wendigos he burned with righteousness. Those beasts somewhere between man and wendigo, he destroyed as a mercy. The ones who were still mostly human, he killed with remorse. He would have chosen to save them, but they had been tainted. The idea to eat their fellow man had already been planted in their minds… if they lived, they would forever be vulnerable to giving into that damning temptation. At least this way, putting them to rest before they could succumb, their souls would find peace in Heaven.

By the time Castiel had cleared out every last wendigo and proto-wendigo in the coal mine, he felt empowered. He felt himself again, a proper weapon of the Lord.

But it wasn’t with the unwavering confidence he’d once known, because his questions and doubts remained. He was coming to learn that those uncertainties would never go away.

Castiel frowned in consternation. That feeling of being someplace other than where he should be – the same sense that had gripped him when he left the bar to fetch the wendigo – was a persistent nudge, tugging at his grace. It was calling him to go somewhere.

He believed he _missed_ being with the Winchesters.

It was unfit for an angel to miss the company of humans, but the drive compelling him to get back to the hunters was undeniable. Castiel had to consider the possibility that, while he was incapacitated by the crippling presence of the shattered one and spent prolonged periods of time with the Winchesters, he’d grown overly-fond of their nearness.

It was weak for an angel to feel that way about humans, but as Lucifer had pointed out so aptly, angels were not built to be alone.

When Castiel emerged at the mouth of the tunnel, it was nighttime. The sky unrolled blue and black above him, a scatter of diamonds bejeweling the sky. Castiel had ignored the close press of stone and earth while he had a job to do, but now that he was outside he basked in the freedom of knowing he could fling himself up into so much open air with a mere thought.

He might have, just to feel the universe on his wings, but almost at the same moment he fully settled his form on the ground outside the tunnel, the phone in his pocket beeped.

Castiel pulled it out and opened it. The date/time display on the screen was his first sense of how long he’d been in the mines. It had been two days since he saw the Winchesters. Though the feeling that made him gravitate toward them seemed to suggest it had been longer.

There were six text messages and two voice mails on his phone. Castiel began to thumb through the texts. They were all from Dean.

_eaten by wendigo yet?_

Castiel huffed and advanced to the next.

_check in when you get a chance_

_bobby thinks found way to get dickangel sword…wrap up wendigo deal and get here_

_whats taking you so long?_

_need to talk to you, call me_

_spencer iowa daze inn rm 103 get here now!_

Castiel puzzled at the urgency in that last text. He nearly went in that very instant, but there were still two voice mails, and if they contained some tactical information about what he would be encountering, he had to hear them first.

The first message from Dean sounded normal enough. “Hey, Cas… guess you’re still knee deep in wendigos. Look, um, I need to pick your brain about something, so when you get this call me back. As soon as you get this.”

The second message was unlike the first. Dean’s voice was harsh and panicked. “Damnit, Cas! Answer your fucking phone! Get your ass over here _right now_ … there’s something wrong with Daniel.”

In the next second, Castiel went. 

He assumed the brothers were still at the location provided in Dean’s last text message. He was correct. Castiel touched down in a motel room much like any other the brothers had stayed in that the Winchesters were adept at making feel like a semi-home just for living out of it with such familiarity.

But the atmosphere in this room was far from homey. Dean was pacing like a caged animal. Daniel was lying disturbingly, deathly still on one of the beds. Sam was…

Sam was suddenly at Castiel’s side, grabbing onto his arm and gripping tightly enough that a human would probably feel pain. Castiel looked toward Sam and was met with the younger brother’s eyes, wide and afraid. “Where the hell have you been?” Sam whispered tersely. His voice was raw and worried.

Dean whirled at his brother’s voice. “ _Cas_! Jesus fucking… what the hell took you so long?”

Castiel gently pulled free of Sam’s hand. “It would seem my phone was unable to function when I was in the mines…” Castiel stopped and looked at Dean. He didn’t like what he saw. Dean looked that awful human combination of terrified and helpless.

Then Castiel remembered Dean’s last voice message. “You said that something was wrong with Daniel?”

A sick look joined the panic already on Dean’s face. “He started getting sick yesterday. Kept crying and nothing I tried would make him stop. Then he stopped eating this afternoon. Now he’ll barely even _move_.” While Dean was listing symptoms, Sam stepped around the pair of them and moved toward the bed. “Then he started having trouble breathing. I was a second away from calling an ambulance, but who the hell knows if a doctor can even do anything?! Or what if they do some test and find out he’s not all human and take him to some lab? God damnit, Cas, what if I’d had to decide between watching him die or seeing him turned into some science experiment? And screw you for putting that on me! You should have fucking _been here_!”

Dean’s words were growing increasingly disjointed and built on emotion rather than facts.

“He really doesn’t look good,” Sam said in a much calmer (though noticeably shaky) voice as he moved toward Castiel, the baby in his arms.

When Sam was standing in front of Castiel, the angel looked down at Daniel. He frowned. Daniel was limp in Sam’s arms, struggling to breathe, his eyes glassy and unfocused.

He looked remarkably like a human dying.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dean demanded.

“His grace is weakening.” Castiel could see the light inside the boy struggling to even shine dully… it was a drastic difference from the blinding ball of light Castiel saw the last time he’d looked into the child. 

“Why would it do that? How do we fix it?”

“Is he dying?” Sam asked in a small voice, one he obviously hoped Dean wouldn’t hear. 

Dean did anyway. “ _No_! He’s not going to die, god damnit! Cas, he’s not dying, right? You can heal him, _right_?”

“I don’t know why his grace would start to fail…”

“Is it my fault?” Dean asked abruptly, looking like he might throw up. “Is it because he’s got human in him?”

Castiel was staring hard at the baby, trying to understand the flickering grace. It made his own grace lurch and cry out for something.

“Please do something,” Sam whispered hoarsely.

He had no idea what to do. “Let me take him,” Castiel said lowly.

It was unpleasant watching the baby change hands, as limp and weak as he was. It made Castiel fear there was little that could be done for the boy at this point. Dean was fidgeting, watching anxiously as Castiel resorted to the familiar. He brought Daniel to his chest and held him there as he tried to think of a reason the baby’s grace would falter… and what he could possibly do to reverse it.

Castiel’s grace pressed tight against the boundaries of him, clamoring to be near Daniel’s. As in the car, Castiel sensed Daniel’s grace reciprocating… albeit this time sluggishly. It moved laboriously to the edges of Daniel in order to lean against Castiel’s grace.

Two startling discoveries jumped out at Castiel at the same moment. 

One: that aching, yearning sense he’d been feeling for days was suddenly gone, and he realized that all that time he hadn’t been missing the Winchester brothers… he’d been missing _Daniel_.

Two: it was not merely a desire for proximity that was ignited in both their graces… it was something much more. Castiel could see it now. As they pressed chest-to-chest, Castiel could feel and see some of the brilliance of his grace winding its way into Daniel’s.

There must have been a stupefied look on his face, because Dean was suddenly standing very close. “What? What is it? Cas?”

Daniel’s grace was soaking up the tendrils and wisps of Castiel’s as fast as it could reach him. The light found the core of Daniel’s grace and lit him up. Daniel’s grace slowly but surely started building itself back toward that shining star Castiel had come to know.

“ _Cas_?”

Castiel looked up into Dean’s desperate, hopeful eyes.

“It would seem that Daniel’s grace needs periodic nearness to mine in order to thrive.”

Dean gaped while Sam sidled closer. “You mean, like, angel nursing or something?”

It was about as accurate as ever calling Castiel ‘pregnant’… but like before, probably as close as the humans could get to understanding the true nature of the condition. “Something like that, yes.” Castiel looked down at the baby. Now that he knew to search for it, he could feel his grace passing into Daniel. It curled hot and joyous in the infant’s grace, then it snaked in faint shimmers of light into the leading edges of his wings. They stirred from their limp state, trying to tuck properly against his back and shoulders.

Without thinking, Castiel stroked them.

“Are you sure?” Dean asked worriedly, looking down at Daniel in Castiel’s hands.

“I can feel my grace moving into him, and I can see his grace growing stronger.”

Lucifer’s words echoed uncomfortably inside Castiel. Not built to be alone.

What finally convinced Dean was Daniel. The baby stirred. He moved his arms from where they’d been hanging limp at his sides and tucked them against his chest as he cuddled against Castiel. It was so very like the Daniel they knew, the baby who craved physical contact… for a very good reason, as it turned out.

Dean let out a huge sigh. “God damn, he scared the shit out of me…” then Dean turned a venomous look on Castiel. “Why didn’t you tell us about the whole grace-feeding thing?”

“I didn’t know… there has never been a being like Daniel before; so much angel and yet partly human. I couldn’t know how that human part of him would express itself.” Castiel frowned at Dean, the hunter still tense with distress. “If I’d known, I would not have left him.” Whether for Dean’s sake or Daniel’s, Castiel wasn’t really sure… but it was true, regardless.

Finally, Dean’s expression changed into something other than horrified. He kind of smiled. “Yeah… okay.” Dean looked at Daniel pressed contently to Castiel’s chest. “So long as he’s going to be all right… but you gotta stick around from now on, Cas. You do that to him or me again, and I’ll shoot you.”

Knowing what would happen to Daniel if he couldn’t be near Castiel’s grace, the angel would sacrifice his freedom to be close when the baby needed him. “Of course.” 

It struck him then that, had he not left the mines when he did, he might have been too late. Daniel might have died.

The thought was distressing. To reassure himself that Daniel was very much alive, Castiel stroked his wings. The baby made a content noise while his wings moved under Castiel’s touch. They shifted against Castiel’s energy with an electrifying tingle that Castiel could feel all the way to his own grace.

It wasn’t until Dean gave him an odd, tired but semi-amused look that Castiel realized he might have smiled a little.

Once the emergency was over, Castiel saw just how exhausted the brothers were. Adrenaline had been carrying them, and when it left much of the energy in the room went with it. Castiel knew the brothers’ rhythms well enough by now to know that they would not stay awake much longer.

Sam gave in first. He scrubbed his face with both hands and mumbled, “Okay, I have to throw in the towel.” Before he did, though, he approached Castiel and Daniel. He reached up, ghosted his palm over Daniel’s fine hair, then ducked down and pressed a light kiss against the boy’s head. “You just about gave us all heart attacks today, Danny.”

Castiel cocked his head at the new name.

For a moment, Sam seemed unable to stop touching the baby. His hand remained cupped around Daniel’s head, his thumb brushing softly over the child’s cheek. Castiel watched, fascinated. The longer he knew Sam Winchester, the harder it was to think of him as the boy with demon blood.

When Sam withdrew and flopped down on one of the beds, Castiel took it upon himself to go to the other and sit down. He propped himself against the headboard, gravity now doing the work of keeping Daniel in place on his chest.

As he knew it would, the angel and baby on the bed drew Dean down. The hunter crawled on to the bed next to the two, eyes glued to Daniel. “He’s really going to be okay?”

“He is already much stronger,” Castiel answered. It was the most honest answer he could give. He had no idea what lay ahead for a child like Daniel. But for now, he was on his way back to healthy and content.

Dean reached up and traced his fingers down Daniel’s back. Castiel watched, taken with the gentleness of hands that had days before fought superhuman monsters.

“Can he feel this?” Dean asked, and Castiel was confused by the question.

“Can he feel you touching his back?”

“I mean, can his wings feel this?”

Castiel watched Daniel’s wings lie unmoving as Dean’s hand passed over and through them. “No.”

“Oh…” Dean looked disappointed.

“Right now, he has no control of them. Your hand is in a plane of existence his wings are not; they pass through one another.” Not knowing why, Castiel added, “When he is older, and learns to control his grace, he may be able to feel you touch them… because he wants to feel it.”

Dean almost smiled. “That’ll be cool.” Dean shifted down to lie on his side on the bed, still watching Daniel intently. He seemed afraid to take his eyes off the baby.

“You were distraught at the thought of losing him,” Castiel noted lowly.

“Of course I was… he’s my son.”

Dean owned the identity of parent so passionately and with such ease. Castiel wondered if he could, too… if he tried. He wondered what it would feel like to love Daniel. Dean did, and it had brought out all the wonderful qualities in him. All that Castiel found worthy and good in humanity.

Dean nestled his head on his pillow then peered upward at Castiel with a bemused expression. “You should know me well enough by now to know how I feel about my family.”

The statement made Castiel miss the other angels… his brothers, his sisters… they were all so far away from him now.

“Moron,” Dean snorted.

“I’m sorry?”

“I wasn’t just talking about Daniel.” Before Castiel could think of something to say, Dean closed his eyes and slipped into sleep. For a minute, Castiel reclined in bed next to Dean and softly stroked Daniel’s wings. When he paid attention to the way Daniel’s grace responded to him, and how his own grace responded in kind, familiarity flared. It was the alacrity of being close to another angel that Castiel had been missing so long. Before that moment, he had not let himself perceive Daniel as another angel… at least not enough to realize that his isolation, in a strange way, had ended. 

Sam started to snore softly in the other bed.

Castiel no longer succumbed to sleep. He was glad for that. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t stay in bed the rest of the night.

Settling in for the night, Castiel shifted on the mattress. He brought his wings up and around, folding himself and Daniel within them.

**********

“You boys sure took your sweet-ass time,” Bobby said by way of brusque greeting the next day when the mismatched traveling group finally turned up at the salvage yard.

“Sorry about that,” Sam said as he moved past Bobby into the hallway and put their bags on the floor. “We had a scare with Daniel yesterday.”

Bobby turned his eyes toward Dean, who was walking into the house carrying the baby. The grizzled hunter looked shrewdly at the infant in Dean’s arms, sizing him up (all eight or nine pounds of him). “‘Daniel’, huh?”

Castiel was at the threshold, but he stopped shy of going inside the house. He looked over his shoulder at the gate they’d passed through, then turned to Dean. “I’m going to check the wards.”

“Sounds good,” Dean replied.

In the next second, the angel vanished.

It cleared a line of sight for Bobby to get a look at the Impala parked in front of his house. “Hell, Dean… what happened to your car?”

Dean winced, like the state of his baby was physically painful to him.

It was Sam who answered. “Yeah, uh… turns out angel giving birth is kind of like a bomb going off.”

Bobby grunted noncommittally. He rolled his chair backward, angling for the library. “Well, I’ve got everything I’ve found on pick-pocketing an archangel laid out; come have a look.”

“Can it wait maybe twenty minutes?” Dean asked. At Bobby’s questioning look, Dean explained, “Daniel’s starting to act like he’s hungry.” As if to prove Dean right, the baby chose that moment to whimper and kick.

“I’m on it,” Sam said, stooping down and fishing one of the bags off the floor. He made for the kitchen with it. Dean gave Bobby a contrite look and went after Sam. Bobby glowered after them both a few minutes before he pushed himself into the kitchen after them.

Sam was preparing a bottle with what already looked like practiced ease. Dean had taken a seat at the kitchen table and was repositioning the baby on his lap. Bobby just sat there watching the whole production, holding his tongue but judging mightily.

“Here you go.” Sam handed the ready bottle to Dean.

“Thanks, man.” Dean offered Daniel the bottle, and the kid didn’t need to be asked twice. He was drinking like a camel in two seconds flat. That was when Dean finally took his eyes off the kid and noticed Bobby’s ‘I judge you hard’ stare.

Dean scowled. “Okay, what?”

Bobby pursed his lips. “Look… I think it’s good of you two to look after Castiel’s angel baby and all, but… well, don’t you think now’s really not the time for it?”

Dean blinked. “What the… what the hell are we supposed to do?”

“I’m just saying we have bigger problems right now… a baby really doesn’t need to be added to them. There must be something else you can do with it.”

Dean’s expression darkened. “Jesus, Bobby… what kind of deadbeat do you think I am?”

“What’s that got to do with the fact that Castiel shouldn’t be making you two responsible for his kid?”

Dean’s expression shifted and he looked over at Sam. “You didn’t tell him?”

“Uh… no?” Sam shrugged sheepishly.

“Didn’t tell me _what_?” Bobby asked warily.

“Daniel’s my son,” Dean answered. After a beat, he continued, “He’s mine and Cas’s.”

Bobby’s eyes went wide, the older hunter suddenly indignant and building up to a good lecture.

“Oh, come on,” Dean snapped to forestall it. “Don’t even start, Bobby. It’s not like me and Cas got it on in the backseat and I forgot to wear a condom and knocked him up. It was nothing like that. Hello, _angel_.”

“Okay… then why don’t you tell me how exactly you ended up having a baby with an angel?”

As a slightly-less-agitated party in the room, Sam stepped forward to do the honors. “Turns out all that stuff we thought was Cas falling was actually this… well, it wasn’t a baby then. He described it like a fractured part of his grace. Apparently that’s how angels reproduce. Their grace breaks and a piece of it starts to grow on its own. But at a certain point, another angel has to offer part of its grace to actually make a new angel. I guess they don’t want angel-clones running around in Heaven or something…”

“But since Cas is fallen,” Dean said, “none of his dick brothers or sisters would help him.”

“And without another angel’s grace to finish the cycle, Cas would have died trying to give birth.” Sam blanched. “And he almost did. 

“When no other angel would step up and help, we thought maybe a piece of human soul would work as a substitute for grace.”

Incredulous, Bobby looked over at Dean. “You gave up part of your _soul_?”

“Cas would have died if I didn’t,” Dean countered darkly. He paused a beat, then he glanced down at the baby. “And if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have Daniel.”

The gauntlet was thrown with that small statement, and they all knew it.

For a moment, no one spoke. The only sound was Daniel suckling on his bottle with a hearty appetite very much reminiscent of Dean Winchester.

Finally, Bobby broke the stalemate. “So… he’s yours, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Balls. Well then, let me take a look at him.” Bobby wheeled over to Dean and leaned forward to peer down at Daniel. The baby’s bright blue eyes moved toward the bearded face that crowded into his range of focus. His gaze held the hunter’s with burning intensity and his brow furrowed in concentration… though he never stopped guzzling his milk.

Bobby grunted. “Kid’s got the angel’s eyes.”

“Has his wings, too,” Dean said, and it was pretty damn obvious from his tone that he was proud about that.

Bobby shook his head. “Hell, the crap you boys get into…”

“To be fair,” Sam chimed in, “a nephew’s way better than the end results we usually get from our snafus.”

“Wait until he’s sixteen and see if you still think that,” Bobby joked, then he looked earnestly at Dean. “Listen, Dean… I’m sorry I told you that you should have ditched him. I didn’t know he was yours. I just thought that angel was taking advantage of you boys.”

“How could he even do that?” Sam asked while making a sour face.

“Please… would he have needed to do anything more than drop a baby on your doorstep to get you two to take care of it?”

Sam grumbled to himself.

True or not, Dean snorted. “You make us sound like girls, man. Ooo, look, Sammy, a baby! Can we keep it? Pleeeeease?”

Sam chuckled.

One side of Bobby’s mouth twitched upward. “Well, I have to admit I’ve been thinking some pretty ugly things about that angel and this baby business… so I guess I owe him an apology, too.” Bobby’s lips pressed into a thin line as he watched Dean feed the baby. “But you don’t have to worry about me ever talking about you getting rid of Daniel again.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean’s eyebrows lifted. “Just like that?”

“Damn right. I _know_ better. You don’t abandon your family… you’re too damn good a dad for that.” Then Bobby’s eyes cut meaningfully over to Sam. Sam smirked in agreement. Dean ducked his head to hide a possible blush, though he covered it well by acting like he was just checking on Daniel.

“And angel in him or not, the boy’s family,” Bobby said resolutely.

Dean cleared his throat and jostled Daniel gently. “What did I tell you, huh? Grandpa’s all hard on the outside, goo on the inside.”

Bobby rolled his eyes.

The sound of sheets snapping in the wind filled the kitchen, and suddenly Castiel was among them. He’d appeared next to Dean’s chair. His eyes went immediately to Daniel.

“We all good out there?” Dean asked as he pulled the empty bottle out of Daniel’s mouth.

“Yes… the sigils I put in place the last time we were here had not been tampered with.” He watched Dean shift the baby in his lap, propping him into a sitting position with a hand supporting his stomach and chest while his other hand began to pat the baby’s back.

After a beat, Castiel held out his hands for Daniel. “I’ll do that.”

Dean handed the baby up to Castiel, who laid the infant on his shoulder and began to tap on his back with motions that looked slightly mechanical and stilted… like it was a behavior he was still learning.

“Castiel… I need to apologize to you,” Bobby said without preamble.

Castiel cocked his head. “For what?”

“Let’s just say you were due one and leave it at that.”

Castiel’s eyebrows rose curiously. “Very well. Your apology is accepted.”

Daniel gave a hearty burp.

“All right! That was at least a seven,” Dean said.

“It is so pathetic that you score your son’s burps, dude,” Sam groaned.

Bobby expected Castiel to give the baby back to Dean. He didn’t. He brought the baby down off his shoulder to cradle him against his chest… that gesture looked far more practiced and ingrained. “I would have to object as well.”

“What? You too, Cas?” Dean sounded wounded.

“I’m afraid so… because that was nothing short of an eight.”

For a split second, nothing. Then Dean was laughing his ass off. Sam looked mortified on behalf of all of Heaven for his brother corrupting their wayward son. Bobby mumbled something about the weirdest-ass family on the planet, then raised his voice to say, “If you children are done, do you think we can get back to the Apocalypse?”

A hunter to the last, Dean was getting his game face back on, but not before flashing an amused glance Castiel’s way, followed by bringing up his hand and brushing his fingers over Daniel’s dark hair.

**********

The hodge-podge of items laid out on Bobby’s desk looked like the debris of a hunter’s cabin (the non-supernatural variety) to Dean, but the moment Castiel entered the room and saw those same items, he drew up short. “That’s a summoning ritual.”

“If I’m doing it right, it is,” Bobby agreed.

Castiel watched Bobby wheel toward the desk, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. He wandered closer to the desk, looked down at the contents, then drew back, shielding Daniel with his hands. “You should not attempt to summon an archangel on your own.”

“Oo, yeah,” Dean hissed, “that’s pretty dangerous, Bobby.” And if Dean, poster-child of reckless behavior, was saying that, it just proved how serious one had to be when fucking around with archangels.

“It’s good to know you all think I’m an idiot,” Bobby snarled. “According to my research, the actual summoning doesn’t happen until blood is used.”

“Of course,” Dean grumbled, “why is it always blood with you angels?” He gently took Daniel from Castiel and laid him on the couch. When the baby was settled, Dean came back and looked down at Bobby’s latest arts and crafts project.

An animal skin of some kind took up most of the table space. It was fur-side down, so Dean couldn’t really tell what kind of pelt it had. The tanned inside had vaguely familiar runes etched into it, presumably with the well-worn hunting knife lying on the skin’s corner like a paperweight. An old book (half in a language Dean couldn’t read) was open near the skin, and Dean had the ridiculous notion it was a hunter-style cookbook. Though he hadn’t a clue whatever the hell Bobby was whipping up, given the crap on the table.

It was all pretty baffling to Dean, but Castiel was not so befuddled. He studied the runes on the skin closely. “You’ve written Gabriel’s name in Enochian.”

“So it’s right? I didn’t have much to go by,” Bobby waved a hand at his towers of ancient books. Half of Bobby’s notes on Enochian were in his own handwriting, jotted down from what Castiel had shown him. Dean had the random thought that Bobby should write his own guide to angelese when this apocalypse crap was over.

“Your handwriting is atrocious, but it is good enough that I can read the name,” Castiel answered.

Sam snorted.

“Yeah, I’ll work on my penmanship,” Bobby said drolly. “So, I found this ritual in an obscure religious text. Seems there was a time when half-angel creatures called nephilim…” Bobby trailed and cast an uncertain glance toward Daniel lying on the couch.

“He’s not a nerf-herder,” Dean interjected. He eyed Castiel standing next to him, then added, “If he’s anything like Cas, when he gets older, he _may_ be scruffy-looking, but he’s not a nerf-herder. He’s something different.”

Castiel was silently watching Dean with that ‘I have no idea what the words coming out of your mouth mean’ look. Dean met his stare head-on for a few protracted seconds, then gave him a ‘what?, that made total sense and you’re a weirdo angel for not getting it’ face.

With a crinkle forming briefly between his eyebrows, Castiel looked down at Bobby. “I have explained the nephilim to Sam and Dean.”

“Yeah, well, I can see how the topic might have come up.” Bobby looked over toward Daniel again. “So… he ain’t one?”

“He is not nephilim in the traditional meaning of the term.” Castiel hesitated. “To be honest, I don’t know what he is.”

“ _Our son_ ,” Dean growled, glaring at Castiel.

“Besides that,” Castiel countered calmly. In an attempt to appease Dean, he amended, “I don’t know how he might be perceived in the eyes of Heaven.”

“Okay, well, then you all know about there being good nephilim and bad nephilim. From what I’ve been able to dig up, before God decided to just wipe his hands of the whole nephilim business and kill them all, some of the good ones were helping humans defend against the bad ones.” Bobby gestured at the skin on the table. “This was a nephilim trap. The people would carve the terrorizing nephilim’s name in blood on the skin of an albino lamb. When done in blood, in the language of the angels, it summoned the nephilim named on the skin. Now, I don’t have the supplies handy to make the ‘pen’ that held it there until the good nephilim could come deal with their misbehaving brother, and the binding spell to neutralize their power looks tricky…”

Dean felt the need to point out something. “Uh… Bobby, this is impressive and all, but… we’re not trying to hog-tie one of the angel/human mutts. We’re gunning for archangel here.”

“I know that,” Bobby retorted, “but from what I’ve been reading it might work on a full angel, too.”

“If it did, in fact, work against the nephilim, it’s quite possible it would prove effective against an angel, as well,” Castiel mused aloud. “The forces that governed angel and nephilim were essentially the same.”

“ _If_ it worked?” Sam asked.

The angel looked consternated. “I have never known of anything outside of warding sigils and holy fire that can contain an angel, and those do not neutralize an angel’s powers… only contain them. And Gabriel is very powerful. It would be a costly risk to take and end up being wrong.”

“So, we know holy fire works… let’s bust out some of that.”

“You still have the problem of how to disarm Gabriel,” Castiel noted.

“Yeah, and even if we _did_ , how the hell do we use his sword?” Sam asked. “You know, without someone exploding.”

Dean looked sharply toward Castiel, remembering the last time (at Bobby’s, in fact) when they’d had the same discussion. Suddenly, he understood Castiel’s attitude toward the suicide mission-style plan. “You were gung ho to use the sword on Lucifer before because you thought you were a dead man anyway.” Dean glanced over at Daniel meaningfully.

Castiel followed his gaze, then answered, “I had every reason to believe I was destined to die either way, yes… but if this is the only way to defeat Lucifer, I am still willing to do it.”

“And I still say hell no to any plan where anyone _explodes_ ,” Dean snapped.

“We may not have the luxury of that choice,” Castiel returned evenly, eyes boring into Dean. Then Castiel faltered. “Although, the matter of getting close enough to Lucifer to use it would be an entirely different problem now.”

“Last time you said you could lure him into a trap,” Sam said, “couldn’t you…” then his face shifted when he realized what Castiel had planned to do. “You were going to call for Lucifer while you were… when that safety zone thing was going on while you were…” Sam waved a hand at Daniel abstractly.

Castiel nodded.

“That no fly zone thing you did with the demons in the woods… could you do that again?” Dean asked.

“It’s not something under my control. It’s an involuntary aspect of the separation process. It could only be recreated if I was breaking away another shattered one… and that is not something I can make happen.” Nor wanted to, from the look on his face. 

Castiel returned his eyes to Bobby’s writing on the lambskin. He cocked his head and frowned, obviously put to the test trying to decipher Bobby’s crappy Enochian. He reached down, picked up the knife, and touched the tip to the skin. “You are missing part of a symbol here.” Castiel scratched it into the skin.

“ _What the hell did you do_?”

The voice came from close behind Dean. And fuck, he knew that voice. And if he didn’t, the simultaneous sound of wings and the smell of ozone would have told him just who had popped in.

Gabriel.

Dean whirled around to face the archangel… but the archangel wasn’t looking at Dean. He was staring down in horror (rage?) at Daniel on the couch.

The baby started to scream. 

Dean moved without thinking, trying to put himself between the archangel and his son. The stories of the nephilim being murdered flashed through his mind. He thought he might be about to find out just how nephilim Daniel was to the angels who’d destroyed the first ones.

Gabriel started to move.

Castiel moved faster. In the blink of an eye, Castiel had shoved Gabriel back, pushing him solidly into a wall. The house shook from the impact, dust motes fell from the ceiling, and a large crack raced up the length of Bobby’s living room wall from floor to ceiling.

Everyone froze, staring in stunned shock at the sight of Castiel pinning Gabriel to the wall, hands clenched in the archangel’s jacket. Gabriel’s feet were dangling a good foot off the ground. But the unbelievable thing was Gabriel’s _face_. He didn’t look bored or mildly amused, like being pinned to the wall was something he was letting happen. He looked _surprised_ … like Castiel was overpowering him.

This was the same archangel who had snapped his fingers and jerked Castiel around on a whim in TV-land… and beat him up for good measure.

Gabriel looked down into Castiel’s face… and he lifted his hands in surrender. “Easy, mama bear… I’m not here to hurt him.”

Dean could see the tension shaking through Castiel’s body. He imagined Castiel wasn’t inclined to believe the archangel. Daniel was still crying, so Dean broke from where he’d stopped, rooted on the spot, and scooped up the baby. Daniel stopped wailing almost immediately, but he continued to make anxious mewling sounds.

Gabriel was watching, his expression unreadable. Then he looked back at Castiel. “I gotta give you credit for thinking outside the box, Castiel… I never would have thought you’d do _that_.” Then Gabriel’s expression sobered, all traces of teasing or taunting gone. “You can let me go… I promise I didn’t come to hurt him.”

Slowly, Castiel released Gabriel and backed off. Gabriel thudded to the floor and straightened his clothes. Castiel slowly backed away, eyes staying locked fiercely on Gabriel… he kept stepping backward until Dean (with Daniel in his arms) was at his back. There was no mistaking the ‘you want him, you have to go through me’ body language.

And Gabriel made no mistake on that count. He looked over at Castiel in full protector mode and lifted his eyebrows. “Huh.”

“If you’re not here to hurt him, then why _are_ you here?” Sam demanded.

“Uh… hello? You called me, you dumbasses.”

Sam, Dean, and Bobby looked quickly at the lambskin. Castiel’s eyes never wavered from Gabriel.

“It wasn’t supposed to work until it was done in blood,” Bobby groused.

“You clearly don’t clean your knives well enough… not enough to count for next to godliness, anyway. And by the way, that binding stuff… wouldn’t have worked. Plenty of poor human bastards died figuring that one out. Humans have got to learn their only option when Heaven’s gone all Jerry Springer is to get out of the way of fighting angels.”

“Or become them,” Sam sneered.

“True. Though something tells me you boys haven’t come to your senses on that front.” Gabriel’s eyes moved to Dean standing behind Castiel’s shoulder. “So… _you’ve_ been busy, Dean.”

Dean held Daniel closer. 

Castiel shifted threateningly.

“Steady there,” Gabriel said, sounding genuinely concerned with keeping Castiel calm, “still not going to hurt him. So, congratulations, condolences? I’m sorry, I’m not sure on the protocol on this one. Hallmark doesn’t have a mongrel angel baby card section.”

“You can take your card and shove it up your ass,” Dean snarled. “Cas is alive now no thanks to you.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows rose. “What, you think I should have been party to _that_?” he gestured cautiously at the baby in Dean’s arms.

“You were going to just let your brother die.”

Gabriel’s expression darkened. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention in class, Dean, but watching my brothers die is all I’ve got to look forward to. And let me tell you, it _sucks_.”

“My heart bleeds,” Dean spat. “You’re such a chicken-shit bastard, Gabe. You’d watch your brothers tear this world _and each other_ apart before you did anything to stop it.”

“Listen, you prick,” Gabriel snapped. “Do you even get that what you mean by ‘putting a stop to it’ means you want me to kill Lucifer? Lucifer… _my brother_? Sounds so easy to you, but could you kill Sam? Even if it saved the world, I bet you couldn’t do it. 

“And how dare you presume that I don’t love Lucifer just as much as I love Michael. How would _you_ pick between your family members? Little Sammy over there or that kid in your arms… quick, pick now, Dean, which one would you kill to end the war?”

Dean didn’t have a retort to that.

Gabriel turned away from Dean in disgust and settled his eyes on Castiel. His posture relaxed. “I can’t say much for what you’ve done… but I am glad you’re not dead.”

“Could have fooled us,” Dean grumbled under his breath.

Castiel held tensely still. Gabriel just looked like he pitied Castiel. “I don’t envy you, Castiel… I could live with either side winning, doesn’t matter to me. I don’t have a reason to care who loses. But you do now. I’m sorry for that… would have been better for you if you never got invested.”

“I was already invested,” Castiel countered.

Gabriel smirked and cocked his head. His gaze flicked past Castiel to Dean then back to Castiel again. “Yeah, I guess you were. First rule of war, bro, don’t get attached to the collateral.”

“Don’t suppose since you’re here,” Bobby called out gruffly from his place behind his desk, “you’d just give us your big bad angel sword?”

Gabriel looked archly at Bobby. “You mean the one that says ‘badass motherfucker’ on it? Nah… I’m not going to do that. Trust me, I’m doing you a favor… whatever would be left of whichever one of you numbskulls tried to use it wouldn’t be pretty.” Gabriel paused then, looked sidelong at Castiel, and said, “Although, if you morons are really set on finding a weapon to use against Lucifer, you might not have to look as far as you think.”

“What’s that mean?” Sam asked.

“It’s more of a theory, really… you see, when God bade the angels to beget their own kind, Lucifer’s betrayal was still pretty fresh on everyone’s mind. And newborns of any species are vulnerable. They’d need protecting. Rumor has it that a ‘parent’ angel of even the lowest class has the power to take on an archangel equal to Lucifer himself if their ‘offspring’ is threatened.”

Speechless silence filled the room. Dean’s eyes went to the wall, cracked from Castiel subduing Gabriel, the archangel, when he thought he might be there to hurt Daniel.

“Of course,” Gabriel added nonchalantly, “it’s never been tested.”

That settled sickly in Dean’s stomach, because the only way to test it would be to let Lucifer near Daniel and hope Castiel had the mojo to smite him.

And if he didn’t, there was nothing to stop Lucifer from killing Daniel.

“We’ll figure something else out,” Sam vowed, his voice tense with the same thing Dean had been thinking.

“Because you’ve been doing so well so far,” Gabriel quipped. Then he checked his wrist for a watch he wasn’t even wearing. “Well, not that this hasn’t been a blast, but I can think of literally a million things I’d rather do than watch the Keystone Cops take on the Apocalypse. And quit calling me; you Winchesters aren’t that entertaining.” 

With that, Gabriel was gone.

Dean let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Well, shit… what’s plan W?”

Castiel turned around sharply to face Dean. Dean flinched. He hadn’t gotten a look at Castiel’s face until now (having been stuck behind the protective angel display the whole time), but he thought he understood now why Gabriel had been talking to Castiel like he was an agitated panther just about ready to snap. Castiel had his full angel wrath on; it was radiating off of him and burning like icy fire in his eyes. Dean wasn’t even the target of it, and he was cowed.

“Cas…?” Dean started to say, voice unsteady with uncertainty, but before he could get out anything else, Castiel reached over and plucked Daniel out of Dean’s arms. Dean squawked at first, then just stood and watched as Castiel gathered Daniel up against him, pressing the baby to his chest. The lingering complaints coming from Daniel stopped at the contact, and Castiel’s blazing wrath started to fade.

Dean contemplated patting Cas on the arm to reassure him, but he wasn’t entirely sure he was safe from an accidental smiting if he triggered something already on edge in Castiel.

So instead he turned to Bobby and Sam and said, “Okay, so… how else can we take down Lucifer?”

Bobby and Sam exchanged looks.

“Yeah, I got nothing, either,” Dean conceded. But they’d think of something… because they had to. It was that or the world end, and that simply could not happen.

**********

Outside the cabin, Dean could hear the hordes of Croatoan-infected overwhelming the defenses of Camp Chitaqua. The panicked screams of fleeing survivors and the crazed screams of Croats knitted together in a dissonant, broken choir of chaos. Gunfire cracked the air. Beyond the cabin’s walls, Dean could smell fire. Whether it was the camp or the world burning, he didn’t know.

Dean turned in a panic and saw Castiel lying prone on his back on a springboard mattress bare of sheets. His loose and dirty clothes, days’ worth of beard growth, and bare feet were sights Dean had seen before. Had hoped to never see again. Had hoped would never come true.

“Cas!” Dean ran to the bed. “Cas! We gotta get out of here!”

Castiel lay perfectly still, staring upward with a glassy look in his eyes. When Dean shook him by the shoulders, Castiel just hummed and smiled lazily. His drugged gaze followed some invisible creature climbing over the ceiling.

“Snap out of it, Cas!” Dean was pulling at Castiel’s shirt, trying to haul him up out of the bed, but it seemed like he was glued in place. The harder Dean tried to move him, the more immovable Castiel became. All Dean’s efforts earned him was Castiel languidly licking his lips and crooning, “Ohhh… Dean, it breaks so pretty…”

Dean gave up trying to budge the former angel. He grabbed his face with both hands and tried to force Castiel’s eyes to focus on him. “Cas, where’s Daniel?” Somehow, he knew the boy was not in the cabin with them.

“Daniel?” Cas slurred. Then he smiled dopily. “He flies, you know… up so high… Danny in the sky…”

“Damnit, Cas!” Dean turned his back on Castiel and bolted for the door.

The other side was all trees on fire, the wall of destruction creeping toward the cabin. Pines crackled and tree sap popped while flames consumed them, the blaze reaching up and up, right into the clouds. Croats were swarming over the campgrounds, all feral eyes, bloody mouths, and sallow skin. Several were afire, flames perched on their shoulders and clinging to arms, banners that followed their headlong pursuit of victims. When they passed Dean, each one looked his way, and Dean knew them all. Pastor Jim, Caleb, Rufus, John Winchester, Ellen, Jo, Strafe, Bobby… just about everyone Dean thought he’d ever known was infected with the Croatoan virus. Or they were the terrified faces of those running for their lives. Sometimes they were both.

“Daniel!” Dean called out. There was no answer but screams. 

He jumped from the porch and sprinted into the woods behind the cabin. The trees he raced through were not burning, but their limbs withered and died before his eyes, needles and leaves sloughing off in great sheets, like dead rain. Dean batted rotting foliage out of his face as he ran crying, “Daniel! _Daniel_!”

Suddenly, the ground disappeared beneath him and Dean was falling. He flailed for purchase, clawing at air. He was falling, out of time.

He was standing in a clearing outside Camp Chitaqua. The forest wasn’t on fire yet. The horde of Croats hadn’t overtaken the security guarding the camp yet. But they would… it was only a matter of time.

“About time you embraced the idea of destiny,” Sam said.

Dean turned and saw his brother. But it wasn’t Sam. The Devil was wearing Sam’s face.

“No,” Dean breathed.

Lucifer smiled with Sam’s mouth. He stretched his arms out, and Dean saw jagged lines where the skin was stitched together… like Lucifer had skinned Sam Winchester and sewn his flesh on himself. “This is going to happen. There’s nothing you can do to stop me. You can’t save your family, Dean.”

“Dad?”

Dean turned his head and saw the small figure of a five-year-old boy standing among the trees.

“Daniel,” Dean croaked, his heart racing, “Daniel, come here!”

The boy lifted his dark-haired head slowly, blue eyes fixing on Dean with a look of sorrow thousands of years older than the child himself. The small smattering of freckles on his nose stood out against too-pale skin. While Dean held out his arms, pleading silently for Daniel to come to him, Daniel’s bright blue eyes filled with recrimination and disappointment. His chin wobbled. “You failed, Dad… you couldn’t save anyone.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Dean vowed.

At that, blood dribbled from the corners of the boy’s mouth. “Too late.” Like a puppet whose strings were cut, Daniel crumpled to the ground.

“ _NO_!” Dean ran over to where Daniel had fallen and dropped to his knees. Dean picked up his son and clutched the boy to him. His lifeless body hung limp in Dean’s arms. Dean hugged Daniel close, desperate to feel his warmth, but there was only cold. Only the stiffness of a corpse to hold. Dean rocked the boy as the forest was set on fire. Screaming rose in the distance. Somewhere, Castiel was lying drugged in a bed soon to burn.

Dean looked up and saw Michael sitting on a rock watching everything. He looked eerily like a young John Winchester, but the power gathered around him was inhuman. He was wearing armor like in the books, he had great wings arching over his shoulders… but his arms were bound before him. He sat helpless and watched Lucifer walk off laughing with Sam’s body.

While Dean clung to his dead son and the world burned, Michael looked somberly at Dean and said in a sad, resigned voice, “We could have stopped it all. We could have saved everyone.”

Daniel turned to ash in Dean’s arms.

Dean woke with a strangled gasp, blinking away visions of fire and death that danced at the periphery of his senses. When they’d cleared, he was in Bobby’s guest bedroom. He lay a moment, trying to get his racing heart and breathing under control. It was a nightmare. Just a dream. Lucifer hadn’t taken Sam. Castiel wasn’t strung out. Daniel wasn’t dead.

But knowing it was probably all true wasn’t very reassuring. So Dean got out of bed and padded to the bedroom door.

Dean peeked in on Sam in the other upstairs bedroom first, relieved to see his brother sprawled starfish-like on the bed, face mashed into his pillow and snoring faintly.

Next, Dean crept down the stairs and made his way to the threshold of the library.

Castiel was there, standing statue-like near the window in the dark room. He had Daniel in his arms, held safely against his chest, while he stared out the window. The moonlight coming through the window barely caught the sharpest angles of Castiel’s face, painting him a figure made of shadow and silver-blue wisps of light. He looked like he’d been standing just like that, on watch, for hours. He looked like he would stand precisely that way for hours more.

Dean smiled a little. This was how he knew Castiel, ever awkward in his human vessel, every bit angel, and so very, very far removed from that drugged-out hippie. But not so far removed from humanity after all, because he was holding his partly-human son to him. Dean hoped the angel would always be like this. It was something Dean could see himself counting on… there had been so little of that in Dean’s life.

“You should sway a little,” Dean spoke softly.

Castiel turned his head to look toward him, not seeming surprised that Dean was there. “What?”

“Sway… babies like rhythm. Here.” Dean stepped over to Castiel but hesitated to actually take Daniel from him. The baby looked peaceful and happy, sleeping soundly against Castiel’s chest. So Dean sidled in closer to the angel’s side, hooked an arm around Castiel’s waist, and guided him to move his body in tandem with Dean’s as Dean demonstrated a sway. Castiel let Dean move him – if he didn’t want to do it, Dean could not have moved him any more than he might move a mountain. He moved side to side with Dean, curious. He watched Dean closely at first, expression hidden in darkness, then he looked down at Daniel. There was no difference in the baby’s sleep, but Castiel seemed to see something Dean didn’t. “He does like it.”

“Yeah, I might not be able to pet his wings, but I can show you what human babies like.” Or what Sam had liked, at least, but that was Dean’s only frame of reference. One of his too-few vivid memories of Mary was watching her sway with Sammy in her arms. 

He and Castiel were still swaying, he realized. “This doesn’t count as us dancing.”

Castiel blinked over at him, puzzled. “And us dancing would be bad?” he guessed.

“Hard to live down if Sam caught us,” Dean answered, then he finally let go of Castiel and stepped around to stand facing him. Castiel continued to sway, eyes following Dean.

“I think you don’t give your brother enough credit sometimes,” Castiel observed quietly.

Dean chuckled at the irony of hearing that about Sam from an angel. “Well, that’s certainly not the opinion of the rest of the angels.”

Castiel made a derisive noise at the mention of the other angels. Dean’s eyebrows rose. Castiel was usually withdrawn and somber when the subject of his heavenly siblings came up… not openly, emotionally hostile. 

It didn’t take much for Dean to think about the confrontation with Gabriel yesterday. For hours after the archangel was gone, Castiel refused to let anyone else hold Daniel. Not even Dean. Castiel got his first go at bottle feeding Daniel, just because he wouldn’t give him to anyone else in order to feed him. Dean hadn’t fought him much, because that look on his face – that disconnected, on-freaky-angel-autopilot look – had lingered long after Gabriel was gone. Dean wasn’t really sure how much he’d get through to Castiel if he’d tried reasoning with that shield of robo-angel.

But Castiel looked fine now. Dean tried his luck. “That was pretty boss, how you dealt with Gabriel.”

Castiel’s swaying stopped and he looked cautiously over at Dean. He looked… embarrassed? Confused?

“I don’t know what came over me,” Castiel confided in a slightly sheepish tone. “I saw him move toward Daniel and I just _reacted_. There seemed to be little conscious thought involved. I have never experienced anything like that before. I have never been controlled so completely by some force so thoroughly detached from my intellect.”

“Sounds like Gabriel was right about angels having some serious protective powers when it comes to their kids.”

Castiel frowned. “I was very frightened he would harm Daniel,” the angel confessed lowly. “I felt driven to do anything I had to in order to keep Daniel safe, no matter the consequences.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Dean replied. He backed over to Bobby’s couch and perched on the arm. He watched Castiel thoughtfully as the angel tentatively began to sway again. He looked really bothered by being blindsided with a parental instinct. He looked torn.

Dean cocked his head. “Angels don’t have families, do they?”

Castiel glanced up at him.

“I mean, you call the others your brothers and sisters, but… it’s not like me and Sam, is it? And you guys don’t have moms and dads and sons and daughters…”

“We have a social structure that we define by familial labels. We have our Father, and I have brothers and sisters… but no, it is not as… _enmeshed_ as human family ties seem to be. I love my brothers and sisters, but it…” Castiel scowled while trying to describe the relationships within Heaven’s clearly-dysfunctional family. “It is more a love hardwired into us. We are made to love God, we were built to love our brothers and sisters. There are some angels I have never met before, but I love them as I was commanded to.” Castiel tilted his head. “It’s not an unreal love… but an impersonal one.”

“But it’s different with Daniel, isn’t it?”

Castiel stilled uncomfortably. “Yes…” he finally admitted. “It’s different with Daniel.”

And he looked troubled by that.

Without prompting, Castiel continued. “If he had come into existence as angels normally do, he would have been welcomed into the heavenly Host of brothers and sisters. The moment we separated, he would have been more brother to me than offspring. A brother I would love and fight to defend, but a brother all the same. But me being cut off from Heaven when I shattered, and now being here alone with him, and Daniel being part you…”

Obviously, every single one of those circumstances was a game changer… taken all together, and Dean thought he had some idea what was giving Castiel so much trouble.

“Cas…” Dean began gently, “it’s okay to love Daniel. To love him like he’s your son.”

“I’m not sure I know how to.”

“Well, seems to me part of you is trying its damnedest to… so just quit fighting it.”

Castiel huffed. “You make it sound simple.”

Dean wanted to counter that there wasn’t much that was simpler than a father loving his son… but he and Castiel both had too many daddy issues for that to really be true.

“You are up at an unusual hour,” Castiel observed after a short silence.

“Yeah… bad dream.”

Castiel made an understanding noise, and didn’t that just beat all.

“Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation talking, but…” Dean heaved a sigh, “sometimes I have no idea how we’re going to do this.” At Castiel’s head tilt, Dean clarified, “Stopping Lucifer.”

“Nor do I.”

Dean snorted. “Thanks, man… reassuring.”

“Oh… I was supposed to lie.”

“Nah…” Dean waved it off with an errant hand, “I never expect that from you. Kind of reassuring to know I can always count on you to give it to me straight.” He scrubbed his face with one hand. “I feel like I can’t say things like this to Sam, because… hell, I don’t know why.”

“You feel the need to protect him,” Castiel pointed out placidly.

“He’s not a kid anymore, and he’s definitely not stupid. He knows how bad the odds are… but it’s like I can’t let him see _me_ know that.”

Castiel pursed his lips. “I think you have a saying for that… fake it ‘til you make it?”

Dean chuckled roughly. “Maybe that’s it.” Dean looked askance at Castiel, seeing him now and remembering the hippie he could be if it all went to hell. “However this ends, good or bad, just, you know… I’m glad you’re here. Seriously, don’t ever change.”

The look Castiel gave him was equal parts warmth and confusion. “You should go back to sleep… you will need to be rested if we’re going to devise a plan to kill Lucifer.”

“Yeah,” Dean huffed, inordinately proud of Castiel for learning to play the human linguist game of optimism in the face of insurmountable obstacles. Dean stood. Before heading back toward the stairs, he walked over to Castiel. He brought up a hand and smoothed his palm over Daniel’s soft hair. He leaned in and kissed the baby’s head. “Night, Daniel.” Dean drew back and looked up at Castiel to find the angel watching him intently, almost cataloguing and studying the hunter’s every move. “Night, Cas.”

“Good night, Dean,” Castiel replied.

Dean made his way toward the hall. Just shy of the staircase, he stopped and looked back into the library/living room. He saw only silhouettes as Castiel stood in front of the large window. But silhouettes were enough. Dean watched Castiel duck his head toward the baby. He stopped when his nose and mouth were a hair’s breadth from touching the crown of Daniel’s head. He stood there, breathing in Daniel’s smell. He didn’t kiss him as he’d watched Dean do, but it was so very near to it. It was Castiel experimenting with the gesture of affection, toying with the idea, trying to let himself love.

Dean smiled and eased back up the stairs.

**********

After a day of solid brainstorming (so much that Dean’s head started to hurt), they were no closer to coming up with a plan to ice the Devil. It was frustrating to keep going in circles, always coming back to the world unraveling at its seams.

Eventually, Dean needed a break. He declared the mission to save the planet a total Kobayashi Maru and went out for a few hours to replace the Impala’s shattered windows.

It was refreshing to know that no matter the scope of the problems, working on his car was still an escape from the world and its convoluted problems. There was something comforting about looking at something broken and _knowing_ he could fix it. That his hands could repair the damage, put things to rights. If only he had the power to do that for the world.

Then the troubling thought struck him… what if he did?

While he worked, he couldn’t get the image of Michael, shackled on the rock while the world ended, out of his mind. The dream wasn’t hard to interpret. Dean’s refusal to consent to being Michael’s vessel was the irons holding Michael back from saving everyone.

Maybe it would really all come down to that. Maybe the angels were right about that much… that Dean would eventually say yes. Or that he should. It was beginning to look increasingly like an archangel like Michael was the only way they were going to end this apocalypse.

There was a time when Dean would have scorned the very thought, because anything would be better than being Michael’s meatsuit. But now Dean wasn’t so sure. What if he held out and it meant it all came crashing down? What if sticking to his guns about never being a vessel meant that Daniel got killed? Dean was terrified, because while he might have been able to hold out when it was just him and the rest of the poor mud monkeys of humanity on the line, he wasn’t sure he could do that if it meant Daniel was in danger.

Like Castiel said, there was something in him that told him to protect Daniel, no matter the consequences.

He didn’t know how to tell Bobby, Sam, or Castiel that he was starting to seriously consider saying yes. It might be the end of him (drooling mess, here he came), but if it saved Sam, if it saved Bobby, if it saved Castiel… if it saved Daniel…

As if he sensed Dean’s wavering resolve, Castiel appeared next to the car while Dean was resealing the back window. Dean glanced up at him and tensed a moment, waiting for a lecture about what he’d been thinking.

But apparently Castiel wasn’t clued in, judging from the patient, expectant look on his face. Dean would think there’d be a pretty wrathful look on Castiel’s face if he knew what Dean had been considering.

“Where’s Daniel?” Dean asked.

“Bobby is watching over him. Sam has gone into town to pick up supplies for dinner.”

“Anyone come up with a brilliant plan to kill Lucifer while I was gone?”

“No.” Castiel scowled. “And Sam could not explain to me the meaning of a ‘Kobayashi Maru’.”

Dean snorted. “It’s an unwinnable scenario.”

Castiel looked closely at him. “You think defeating Lucifer is impossible?”

“For _us_ … yeah, maybe I’m starting to.”

Thing was, he hadn’t really meant to say that. Certainly not to Castiel, because Castiel wasn’t the type to just pass it off as idle talk. And sure enough, his stare directed at Dean turned laser-focused and that angel sense of his presence swelled.

Dean sighed, put down his work, and turned to face Castiel. “Look… what if you were right?”

“About what?”

“What you said before… that only another archangel could kill an archangel like Lucifer.”

Castiel’s eyes narrowed.

“And who’s the baddest-ass archangel around?”

“Michael.” Castiel stiffened angrily. “You are considering saying yes.”

“I’m thinking we might not have another choice.” Dean shrugged helplessly. “We’ve hit one dead end after another looking for a way to kill Lucifer.” Dean looked toward the house, his stomach knotting. “I don’t know if I could live with myself if everyone died when I could have stopped it. What if… what if not saying yes gets Daniel killed?”

Castiel visibly flinched. A ghost of that protective angel parent flashed in his eyes, then he was shifting… agitated. “I would not allow that to happen.”

“And neither will I,” Dean countered.

They just stared at one another a moment, hackles metaphorically up.

Surprisingly, the first one to break the stare-off was Castiel. He looked toward the house, consternated. “I’m starting to understand why angels are not allowed to have the deeply emotional ties to one another that humans do. Our son is causing both of us to consider extremely unwise courses of action.”

“Well, maybe it’s time we start thinking like parents,” Dean argued. “Maybe the world _needs_ us to start making crazy decisions.”

The air was practically crackling with the static electricity of an angel’s barely-contained fury. Last time Dean felt that energy coming off of Castiel, windows were blowing out and lights were exploding.

“I won’t let you sacrifice yourself,” Castiel said lowly.

Dean glowered. “Well, you can’t do it. Daniel needs you. Literally, he would die without you.”

“We don’t know that I would die in a battle with Lucifer… if I was protecting Daniel, I might win.”

“And you might not.”

“And if I didn’t, you could still say yes to Michael.”

For a minute, Dean and Castiel just looked at one another. The words they’d bandied just sort of swam between them, unable to be taken back and clamoring to be acknowledged.

“Did, uh…” Dean started haltingly, “did we just come up with a not-entirely-ridiculous plan Z?”

Castiel almost sneered. “I don’t like it.”

“Yeah, I don’t either… but it’s the first plan we’ve had that sounds like it might actually work.” Shit, it even had a built-in fail-safe, which was one more than the Winchesters’ plans usually did.

“If it came to that,” Castiel said carefully, “if I took on Lucifer and failed, if you were left with no choice but to consent to Michael and become his vessel, Daniel would be orphaned.”

And that made Dean’s insides curdle just thinking about it. He braced a hand on the side of the Impala to steady himself. “That thing Daniel does with your grace… does it have to be _your_ grace? Could he survive on another angel’s?”

Castiel looked warily at Dean. “Most likely… a newborn angel takes strength from the entire Host, suggesting the process does not discriminate much in regards to the source of the grace it takes.” Castiel took a step closer to Dean. “Why?”

“If I told Michael the only way I would say yes is if he promised to take care of Daniel… do you think he’d do it?”

Castiel’s eyes widened. For a second, he didn’t say anything.

“Well?” Dean asked anxiously.

Castiel looked discomfited. “If Michael took Daniel… if he took him into Heaven, Daniel would be indoctrinated into the same corrupted establishment we have been fighting all this time.”

“Believe me, it’s not my first choice. If I had my druthers, Sam would keep Daniel if something happened to you and me. But he’s too much your son for that… he needs _angels_.” Dean grit his teeth. “I don’t like it, but if that’s the only way to save Daniel’s life…”

Castiel turned his back on Dean, moving a pace away from the hunter. Dean watched him, lost for anything else to say.

“Yes,” Castiel said thinly, without turning to face Dean.

“Yes?”

Castiel sighed and turned. “If, as a condition of your consent, you made Michael give his word to take Daniel… I believe he would honor it.” Dean remembered Castiel, in Claire Novak, telling a dying Jimmy Novak ‘of course we keep our promises’… as long as that wasn’t just lip-service to a dying man.

“Would he keep his promise even if he thought Daniel was a nerf-herder?”

Castiel considered that a moment. “If it was the only way you would consent to being his vessel… I believe accepting Daniel into Heaven and welcoming him among the ranks of angels, even if he was considered nephilim, would be deemed a small price to pay.”

Somehow, that was both good and bad news. A relief and a crushing blow all at once. After everything he and Sam had done to fight the idea of destiny…

“Hey,” Dean quipped sardonically, “you don’t think Heaven set this all up, do you? Getting us to have a kid together that we’d both do anything for?” 

He meant it as a twisted joke, something to try and ease the awful tension that was suddenly suffocating, but Castiel just gave him a rueful look and said, “At this point, I would not put anything past my brothers.”

Yep… Dean was definitely feeling sick. “Well, hell, this sucks.” Dean gave an expansive shrug. “So… how exactly does one go about having a little chat with Heaven’s top archangel?”

Castiel opened his mouth to reply… but instead of words, a garbled cry came out. His eyes widened in surprise and pain, and he clutched his forehead with one hand. He staggered and went to his knees.

“ _Cas_?!” Dean started toward Castiel… but he didn’t make it more than one step before the world started to tremble under his feet. Dean fumbled around and nearly fell until he got his legs braced apart like Bambi on ice. First he thought it was Michael… that somehow just agreeing to talk to the archangel had somehow been taken as a yes to being a Dean-suit. When there was no blinding light or celestial being cramming itself inside him, Dean thought it was Lucifer. When the world didn’t turn to flames, he was really confused. The earth was still rocking beneath him. Castiel was crouched on the ground, looking like he was nursing the universe’s most massive migraine. Dean could hear Bobby’s house creaking ominously. He heard glass breaking within, Bobby shouting, Daniel’s piercing cries…

Dean tried to stumble his way toward the house, toward Cas, but the planet was doing its damnedest to try and shake him off. Somewhere in the salvage yard, he heard stacked tires and hubcaps crashing to the ground.

Then, almost as quickly as it had started, it was over. The world quit having an epileptic seizure and Dean stood, stance wide, making sure he could trust his feet to stay connected to the ground before he dared move. As soon as he did, he was running toward Castiel.

“Cas? Hey, man, you okay?”

Castiel was unfurling from his hunched position, looking up with a pinched expression of pain on his face. He looked at Dean distractedly, then stood shakily to throw a look over his shoulder into the distance.

“What was that?” Dean asked.

“A massacre… many angels just died.”

Dean gaped a moment. “Great disturbance in the force, huh? Well, that can’t be good.” Dean was already looking toward the house. He could still hear Daniel crying inside… and it was getting hard to not get to him ten seconds ago.

“Come on, Cas, we –”

“I need to find out what’s happened.” Dean didn’t have to see wings to know Castiel was getting his ready.

Dean grabbed his arm. “Hey! Hold up a second… you think an angel massacre is really where you should go right now?”

Castiel shrugged off Dean’s hand as if it had no more force behind it than a gnat’s grasp. “This was a powerful event – it could have far-reaching implications. It could turn the war. We must know what has happened.” Castiel spared Dean a glance, but that ‘warrior of God on a holy mission’ was in his expression, and Dean had never been good at fighting that. He was just a puny human against it. But Castiel did give him the courtesy of a parting at least, a rushed, “I’ll be back.” 

With that, Castiel was gone.

“Fuck,” Dean growled, then he was sprinting for the house. He burst through the back door and called out, “Bobby!”

“In the living room! Could use a little help!”

Dean bolted through the kitchen and stopped short in the entrance to the living room, taking in the scene. One leg of the table had given out under the shaking and tipped over, spilling books, glasses, and papers all over the floor. An upended bottle of whiskey was spreading booze onto the rug. Bobby was on the floor next to his overturned wheelchair. Daniel was on the floor, sheltered by Bobby as the older hunter shielded the child from falling debris with his body.

Dean hurried over and crouched down next to them. “Is he okay?” Bobby pushed away so Dean could reach down past him and scoop up his son. Daniel was red-faced screaming, but there was no sign of blood. Dean danced a worried hand over the boy’s body, looking for injuries, but he didn’t seem hurt. Just freaked out. He could join the club.

“Wasn’t much good sitting there like ducks,” Bobby grumbled as he looked over sourly at the wheelchair. “Figured, hell, the old ‘throw yourself on a grenade’ style’s gotta do more good.”

“I think he’s okay.”

“Good… now are you going to help me up?”

Dean laid Daniel on the couch, checked him over one more time, then went over to help Bobby. He righted the wheelchair then hauled the hunter up off the floor and deposited him none-too-gracefully back in the chair. Bobby gave a grunt at the rude dump, then looked around at his wrecked living room. “What the hell was that?”

“Alderaan,” Dean replied grimly.

Bobby gave him the stink-eye. “Dean, if you don’t start talking sense, I’m going to put my boot on the end of a broom so I can kick your ass.”

Before Dean could answer, Dean’s cell phone was ringing. It was Sam. “Dude! Did you feel that?”

“Yeah, we felt it all right.”

“What was it, an earthquake?”

“Hardly… where are you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah… I’m fine. I’m about ten minutes from the house; drove off into the ditch, but no major damage. At least it was one of Bobby’s many shit-heap cars. Is everyone all right over there?”

“Yeah, we’re good. Well, scratch that. Me, Bobby, and Daniel are fine; I’m not sure about Cas right now.”

“What?”

“Just get back here and I’ll explain best I can.”

**********

Sam looked up from the newscast when Dean came in scowling down at his cell phone. The look on his brother’s face pretty much said it all, but Sam asked anyway, “Still can’t get hold of Cas?”

“No.” Dean glared down at his phone. It had been four hours since the earth did its wet dog impression, and there had not been word from Castiel since.

“The quake in Omaha is all over the news.” Sam gestured at the television with the remote. “Looks like it got hit pretty hard.”

“Since we felt it all the way in South Dakota, I think that falls under the ‘no shit’ category,” Dean said.

Sam nodded. “They found an old abandoned factory – showed it on a segment earlier – the place looked like it was nuked. Seems that it was at the epicenter of the quake. Place leveled, grass and trees burned to a crisp for half a mile in any direction. Course, the geologists are baffled…”

“I’ll bet they are,” Dean scoffed.

Sam put the television on mute and turned his full attention to his brother. “So that’s all Cas said before he left? That it was a bunch of angels dying?”

“That and some cryptic shit about it maybe deciding the war.” Dean stalked over to the couch where Daniel was lying. There he stopped and stood staring down at the baby intently.

Sam swallowed. “How’s he doing?”

“He looks cranky.” 

Which was how it started last time.

“Son of a bitch better have a fucking good reason for ditching on him,” Dean snarled under his breath. Sam kept his mouth shut… he had to believe Castiel would not have left Daniel unless it was really, _really_ important.

Bobby rolled in from the kitchen. “Well, I got in touch with one of my contacts in Lincoln… seems he’d been up in Omaha tracking some demonic omens. Nothing heavy-duty like we’ve been focusing on lately, but enough that Gerald followed the bread crumbs up that way. He said things were pretty on par, your standard demon activity hunt, nothing he couldn’t handle himself, when shit just hit the fan big time. Demonic signs went off the charts. That was about an hour before the quake. Then nothing.”

“Sounds like there was a huge battle,” Sam mused.

“Where a fuck-ton of angels apparently bit the dust,” Dean groused, “which Cas felt the need to go check out without any backup.”

Sam slid a look over at Bobby and saw the quiet, thoughtful look on the elder hunter’s face as he studied Dean. Sam could practically hear what he was thinking. Dean’s priorities, in the face of a potential windfall for Hell, were questionable at best, and suspect to say the least. More than one life hung in the balance here, but good luck getting Dean to think beyond the one.

It was nothing new to Sam. He’d seen how Dean could put the world second when someone he loved was on the line… just usually, that person getting put before the world was Sam. Sam’s eyes dropped to where Daniel lay on the couch, kicking grumpily at the blanket wrapped around him.

“On the bright side,” Bobby quipped as he looked over at the big crack in his wall from Castiel shoving Gabriel, “I can say that happened in the quake and maybe get homeowner’s insurance to pay for it.”

Sam offered a weak smirk.

“Way to sound like a civilian, Bobby,” Dean said.

“Not all of us live out of a car, boy,” Bobby countered. But there wasn’t much bite in it, nor in his eyes. He could see Dean was worried about his kid. “Anyhow, Gerald says there’s not much left for figuring out what went down, so looks like we’re stuck waiting for your angel to come back with word.”

Waiting on Castiel for more than that, Sam thought to himself as his eyes strayed worriedly back to Daniel.

**********

Dean didn’t even bother trying to go to bed once it got dark. Not that he could have slept even if he’d tried. He just paced the house with Daniel held close… for what good it did, because Dean couldn’t be what the boy needed, no matter how badly he wished he could be. He held Daniel like Castiel did, but the kid wasn’t fooled. Lethargy snuck up inch by inch and stole the baby’s energy. He slumped against Dean, every once in a while whimpering for Castiel.

Sam stayed up until midnight with his brother, keeping Dean company and offering moral support… sadly, it was the only thing he could do. He spelled Dean once in a while, taking the baby when Dean looked too close to the edge and needed to take a step back. Each time, Daniel would perk up with effort at the switch off… only to settle weakly when the new person holding him wasn’t Castiel. Dean would go to the kitchen and get a drink or a snack or manhandle Bobby’s things roughly in pent-up frustration, but it was never long before he was taking Daniel back.

When Sam finally gave up and went upstairs, Dean prowled around downstairs a couple of hours before going up himself. Not that he expected to sleep.

And he didn’t. He stood at the bedroom window overlooking the salvage yard, hoping Castiel was okay while planning ways to kick his angel ass when he showed back up. Because he damn well better.

Daniel made a grumpy noise against Dean’s shoulder and his tiny hand fisted Dean’s shirt in a weak grip. He wasn’t bad yet – before, when they didn’t know Daniel needed Castiel, _that_ had been bad – but Dean had no interest in seeing it get to that point again. And if Castiel didn’t turn up before too long, Dean had to start considering resorting to desperate measures.

His top two choices were: 1) appealing to Gabriel to just hold the kid for a while (Dean was willing to give just about anything Gabriel might want in return for letting his son bask in the archangel’s grace), or 2) saying yes to Michael – _becoming_ Michael – which was drastic, but at least it would get an angel there for Daniel. 

Both options sucked, and Dean wasn’t looking forward to picking.

Luckily, he didn’t have to. 

It was ass-early-o’clock and Dean was haunting the window like a gargoyle when the sound of wings broke the silence. Dean turned at once and there was Castiel standing a few feet away. He wasn’t covered in blood, which was about all Dean took time to register before he was moving toward the angel.

“ _Feathered dick_ ,” Dean growled as he started to hand Daniel over. Castiel was reaching out for the baby in the same breath. Without a word, the angel gathered Daniel close and cradled him. Daniel squirmed at first then seemed to press himself eagerly against Castiel.

It felt like Dean could finally breathe, and he heaved a sigh.

For a minute, neither one of them spoke. There was only Castiel holding Daniel to him and Dean standing there watching. 

Then Dean took the time to actually look at Castiel. Something was off. Castiel wasn’t holding Daniel like an afterthought the way he usually did; he was almost hugging him, cupping the back of Daniel’s head as he ducked his face toward the baby and closed his eyes. It wasn’t a peaceful look… it looked harrowed. Like Cas was in danger of feeling raw anguish and didn’t know how to cope with the impending meltdown. Like he was trying to bury what he was feeling with whatever it was he got out of being near Daniel.

Despite all the nasty things Dean had been thinking, and all the shit he’d planned to give Castiel when he showed up, Dean found that the urge to do it was gone after seeing that look on Castiel’s face. “Hey… what’s wrong?” Dean asked worriedly.

Castiel sucked in a tight breath and buried his nose in Daniel’s fine hair.

Dean frowned, reached out, and clasped Castiel on the shoulder. He tried shaking him, but Cas was locked up, so that was a no go… friendly touch on the shoulder it was. “Cas…?”

“I’m sorry I was away as long as I was.”

“Yeah… well, I’m not mad. Much. Now. Just tell me there was a damn good reason.”

“I had to know… the amount of power unleashed, the strength of the shockwave… it was either many angels dying at once, or a few… but among them an archangel.”

Dean’s eyebrows rose. “Michael?”

Castiel opened his eyes and peered up at Dean, blue eyes haunted. “If he’d been killed…”

“We’d be screwed,” Dean finished, a knot forming in his stomach. They were counting on Michael being the last-ditch choice, the rabbit they could pull out of the hat if things got desperate and it was literally do or die on a planetary scale. But if their ace in the hole went and got himself zapped into oblivion…

“So was he there? Was Michael killed?” Dean asked lowly.

“No… he wasn’t among the dead.” Castiel faltered. “But many of my brothers and sisters were.”

Which explained the stricken look on his face. Dicks or not, they were still Castiel’s family, and seeing a reunion-worthy number of them lying around dead had to be horrifying.

“At least Michael’s still in the game,” Dean offered lamely. “But how could he have been at ground zero, anyway? Doesn’t he need me for that kind of crap?”

“Like Lucifer, he could have resorted to taking an inferior but still compatible vessel in the face of your stubborn resistance.”

“I got a second cousin twice removed out there or something?” Dean joked.

“Something like that.”

“Huh… sucks to be them, then.” Because Dean had way too much on his plate to worry about some poor schmuck out there with a drop of Winchester blood in him. Dean considered Castiel quietly a moment. “So, what the hell happened out there?”

Castiel’s expression hardened. “A large group of demons had gathered, among them some of Lucifer’s most dangerous minions. It had the makings of a great battle for Heaven and earth. Heaven sent a large force to meet them in combat. The demons in attendance were upper-echelon in Lucifer’s army, high-priority targets. It wasn’t outlandish to think Michael himself would be there.”

“Sounds like heavy-duty shit. So…?”

“It was a trap. The demons, all of them… they had ingested holy oil. Gallons of it. The moment the first angel touched one of the demons to burn it out of its host, the holy oil ignited, set off a chain of explosions… the angels were engulfed in holy fire. The demons had turned themselves into bombs.”

“ _Damn_ …”

Castiel brushed his fingers over Daniel’s hair. “It was a slaughter… demons and angels alike were destroyed.”

“Yeah, and gave Omaha a good shake in the process.” Dean shuffled foot to foot. “So… what took you so long to get back?”

“I hoped to arrive before the others and learn if Michael had been lost… but I was not fast enough. The massive event brought other angels to investigate. I fled, but not before I was seen. They gave chase. I had to be sure I’d lost them all before I dared to come back.”

Shit. “But you did lose them, right?”

Castiel gave Dean a withering look. “I wouldn’t lead them to Daniel.”

“Right, of course not… okay.” Dean licked his lips. “So… where does this leave us?”

Ever so faintly, Castiel began to sway. “In his bid to eliminate the greatest threat to him, Lucifer gambled the strongest in his army to lure Michael into a trap. The risk he took ended in failure and has left him without his strongest soldiers.”

“Yeah, but it sounds like Heaven’s down a hockey team or two.”

The angel didn’t bother trying to sort out that statement, just assumed what it likely meant and added, “Both sides will be weakened… but also desperate.”

“Great.” Because the thought of desperate dueling archangels wasn’t terrifying or anything. “Okay, so… Michael’s still an option at this point, right?”

“A bad one,” Castiel grumbled.

“Not seeing a lot of alternatives,” Dean snapped back. Then he frowned down at Daniel in Castiel’s arms. “So… how can I talk to the big guy?”

Castiel stopped swaying and eyed Dean a moment. Resistance was tense in his spine and the set of his shoulders. Now might not be the best time to be plying Castiel to relent to anything he didn’t like, just because he was in a defensive mood. But end of the world kind of made time of the essence. Eventually, Castiel seemed to give in, and he replied, “If I went into your dreams with you, I could call for him to grant us an audience there. You could speak to him without being physically in his presence.”

“Which, yeah, probably not a good thing,” Dean agreed. Then he thought of something. “I thought you put up some angel mojo against the bad guys busting in on our dreams, though. How’s Michael going to get in?”

“The wards I put in place…” again, that look on his face like the English language was failing him miserably, “they function much like a locked door. It keeps intruders out, but does nothing to stop you from going outside. He can enter your dreams if I invite him in… if I ‘open the door’ if you will.”

Dean wished his head didn’t sound so much like Grand Central Station. “Okay, so that’s the plan… you get big brother on the dream-phone and we do a little negotiating?”

Castiel looked wearily toward the bed. “Very well.”

Dean crawled on the bed, lying on his back and watching Castiel climb on the other side of the bed next to him. The angel reclined against the headboard, Daniel sprawled against his chest. Cas kept one hand on his son while he freed the other to reach toward Dean’s forehead.

“Sam’s not going to like this,” Castiel warned just shy of sending Dean to dreamland.

“Let me worry about Sam.”

“Hasn’t it always been you worrying about Sam?” Castiel asked wryly.

Dean blinked, kind of struck speechless at the offhand observation. “Just… do it.”

With a touch of two fingers, Dean left the dark room in Bobby Singer’s house far behind.

He was in a forest. If Sam wanted details about it later, Dean would lie through his teeth, because the woodlands he stood in were nothing short of enchanted. Leaves of shimmering silver and gold rustled in trees wrapped in bronze bark. The grass underfoot was silken and white, moving in defiance of the wind rather than bending to it – it danced and whorled to a song only the shiny grass could hear. The sky was an impossible blue, shining with dozens of suns whose rays crisscrossed the sky, like shattered prisms of light.

It was pretty much what ‘fields of the Lord’ sounded like in Dean’s head anytime Castiel used the term. He doubted Heaven had pinecones and squirrels.

“Michael.”

Dean turned at Castiel’s voice… turned and his jaw dropped. Castiel was standing a few steps behind Dean, at his shoulder the way he so often was in real life. Only this Castiel had huge fucking wings. Like an enormous eagle, amber and tan wings arched over his shoulders, held so casually… like they were no big deal. When Dean’s agape stare registered with Castiel, the angel cocked his head. When he did, his wings shifted, catching rays of sunlight and shining gold like the leaves.

“Crap, Cas… you think you could be just a _little_ less distracting?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Castiel returned in exasperation, then he looked skyward. “Michael… it’s Castiel. I am with Dean Winchester. He wants to speak with you.”

“It’s good to finally meet you, Dean.”

Dean flinched and whirled around… only to find himself staring at his father. John Winchester, as larger-than-life as Dean remembered him and more, stood in the clearing before Dean. His clothes were familiar and yet too impeccable for the gruff hunter. His presence was buckling, but even more imposing than Dean’s father had ever been… even when Dean had been four and looked up at his dad as a giant among men… a god among men.

“Michael?” Dean ventured with a swallow.

John’s mouth curved in a slightly condescending smile. He tipped his head in acknowledgement.

“How dare you look like that,” Dean growled. “Why him?”

“He’s of the bloodline, just as you are… it’s not so strange. And if I appeared to you as I truly am, even your subconscious mind would be overwhelmed. I thought you would be receptive to this form.”

“Or obey it,” Dean said sharply. “Well, no dice, Mikey… just because you look like my dad doesn’t mean you can order me around and expect me to do what you say. You can’t _trick me_ into saying yes.”

Michael huffed softly. “I would never try to trick you. You’re mistaking me for my brother. But speaking of brothers,” Michael looked past Dean toward Castiel. “You’re quite the talk of the Host, Castiel. The little angel that could. Here we all are doing everything we can to get this human to see that our cause is just, for it _is_ , and you have somehow managed to win his implicit trust with an unholy act of rebellion.”

“I am doing what I believe is right,” Castiel answered evenly.

“And if you were true to God’s plan, the ‘right thing’ would be to see this play out as it was meant to… with Dean accepting me in His glory to defeat Lucifer.”

“Look, you have issues with your brother, I get it,” Dean snarled, annoyed by the bastard judging Castiel for actually having a conscience and a spine. “I could really give a rat’s ass about your little family feud… except that it’s putting my planet in the crosshairs.”

Michael returned his maddeningly calm, steady gaze toward Dean. “As it was written.”

“Whatever… so, just how badly do you want to get all up in me? Bad enough to cut a deal?”

Michael’s eyes flickered, annoyance and indignation flaring somewhere beyond his human shape. “I’m not a crossroads demon.”

“No… but you ask me, you guys aren’t too far away on the evolutionary tree. They’re chimps and you’re gorillas.”

Michael smirked. “Interesting analogy coming from a monkey.”

“Takes one to know one.” Dean scowled. “Let me lay it out simple for you… I won’t even consider letting you take the wheel of the 1979 Dean Winchester unless you agree to a few conditions. So… you game?”

Michael’s eyes narrowed. “And what _conditions_ would those be?”

The act of thinking seemed to conjure in this dreamscape, because Dean’s thoughts had no sooner flitted to Daniel than he was there. Barely more than two years old, the little boy with dark hair and bright blue eyes was suddenly sitting in the grass at the edge of the clearing. He was staring wide-eyed at Michael. Dean’s heart stuttered a second, because Daniel had wings. Small, like the rest of him, they extended to either side of his body, half-open. Like Castiel’s, they were light brown… with the odd dark feather sprinkled throughout, much like the dusting of freckles on the boy’s nose.

Michael’s eyes flew to Daniel and went wide. Composure (and his obvious effort to seem like the best-bud angel) momentarily forgotten, Michael’s presence swelled enough to fill the sky. The trees creaked at their trunks as they bent away from the archangel’s power. Wings, massive white wings, burst from his shoulders and swept forward in an arresting mantel pose.

One second Castiel was behind Dean’s shoulder, the next he was beside Daniel. Without hesitating, Castiel reached down and picked up Daniel. He hitched the boy on his hip and Daniel leaned into Castiel, grabbing on to him with his arms and swallowing Castiel’s chest and shoulders in a wing-hug. Castiel’s wings were open and in a restless at-the-ready position like Michael’s.

For a second, no one moved.

Slowly, Michael collected himself. At length, he returned his attention to Dean. “I must say, Dean… you are full of surprises.”

“Thanks… the day that you angels actually _get me_ really will be the end of the world.” Dean checked with Castiel. The angel gave him a reassuring look… quickly followed by a wary appraisal of Michael.

“I can only assume these ‘conditions’ of consent you want to discuss concern… that.” Michael gestured half-heartedly toward the child in Castiel’s arms.

“Better watch it, Mike… my son is not a _thing_.”

“Your _son_ should not be anything. He should not exist; it’s an abomination. A blasphemy.” Michael turned a sharp look on Castiel. “You should know better, Castiel. How dare you create this thing with a human.”

“My son will be better for being a part of Dean Winchester than he ever would be as a pure angel,” Castiel countered venomously, holding Daniel close.

“ _Your son_?” Michael repeated in disgust. He almost sneered… then settled on a pitying shake of his head instead. “Oh, Castiel… how far you’ve fallen.”

“How about you stop talking shit about my family and listen up?” Dean interjected. When Michael, grudgingly, gave Dean his full attention, Dean took a breath and went for it. “I probably don’t have to tell you that finding a way to stop this Apocalypse without you is starting to look… unlikely.”

“Impossible… but go on.”

“Well, give yourself a gold star… because you’re finally getting me to agree with you on something. I’m not going to let this world literally go to Hell… not on my watch. If I have to, I’ll take one for the team.”

“A wise decision…”

“I’m not finished. I’m not afraid to die. Neither is Cas. But our son needs to be around an angel’s grace to live.”

Michael drew back slightly. “I think I can see where this is going.”

“If I said yes to you… would you promise to take care of Daniel?”

Michael turned a thoughtful look toward Castiel and the boy he was holding. Daniel was peeking over at Michael from behind the edge of his own wing. When Michael’s stare fixed on him, Daniel whimpered and turned his head to hide his face in the crook of Castiel’s neck.

A disturbing calm came over Michael. Like a decision had been reached, and it was reached with all the confidence of something ordained by God. Michael locked his scary-intent stare on Dean, once again all eerie and quiet calm, like the deceptively peaceful surface of a deadly sea. “If you will consent to be my vessel, Dean Winchester, I give you my word there will be a place among the angels for the… for _Daniel_.”

Anxiety broke like a dry twig and Dean nodded. “Good… that’s good.”

Michael quirked one eyebrow. “Then do I have your consent?”

Castiel made a strange noise off to the side, but Dean didn’t take his eyes off the archangel. “Not quite yet… but you’re on my speed dial.”

Michael frowned. “You play dangerous games, Dean… I hope you don’t end up being burned.”

“Been there, done that… so, good talking to you. And I’ll be in touch.”

Michael gave Dean one last testing stare, a lingering disapproving glower at Castiel, then he was simply gone.

Dean crossed the clearing to Castiel, whose wings were already settling back behind his shoulders. Daniel twisted in Castiel’s arms, saw Dean coming, and held out his arms, little fingers opening and closing accompanied by an insistent, “Dada!”

That had to be about the best word in the world… right up there with ‘pie’ and ‘Sammy’. Dean took Daniel from Castiel, surprised by how awkward it _wasn’t_ to accommodate the boy’s wings. That was dreams for you, he supposed.

“So…” Dean said to Castiel, “it’s not a great plan – it doesn’t save Sam, it doesn’t save you, and I’m a goner – but at least we know Daniel has somewhere to go if it all falls to shit.” At the end of the world, it was a small comfort that most people didn’t have.

Castiel nodded stiltedly, still looking uneasy.

“What’s up?” Dean asked.

“I didn’t like him _seeing_ Daniel like that.”

“Yeah, well, he just saw my freaky dream version of him, anyway,” Dean mused, not sure why that would be so upsetting. And it wasn’t like Dean could control what his dreams did.

Castiel turned one of his laser-focused looks on Dean. “No, Dean… that _is_ Daniel.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. Perhaps it’s because his grace and mine are interacting in the waking world, but he came in with us.”

“Whoa.” That was wild. And freaky now that he realized Michael had actually been seeing their son.

Dean craned his neck to look Daniel in the eye. Daniel stared back at him a few seconds with soul-searching blue eyes (filled with that angel-intensity he got from Castiel), then he broke into a smile, as if to say ‘duh, of course it’s me, Dad’. Dean grinned. “Okay, that’s just cool.” Then, because he actually could, Dean reached up with his free hand and threaded his fingers experimentally through one of Daniel’s wings. The boy giggled and squirmed.

“Holy shit, his wings are ticklish!”

Castiel fidgeted. “If you handle them like that,” he grumbled contritely.

“Hold up, you saying _your_ wings are ticklish?”

“No.” 

But Dean did not believe that. And hell, since Castiel’s wings were _there_ , he reached over and carded his fingers through a handful of feathers. Castiel sidestepped the touch with a strangled, “Quit it, Dean.”

Dean chuckled, “Not ticklish my ass, that is awesome,” and went back to tickling Daniel’s wings… because at least he liked laughing. But damn, the kid had an infectious laugh.

Castiel watched a moment, long enough for the rigid tension in his body to ease, then he said, “We should leave.”

“Not yet… can’t we... can’t we stay a little while?” Dean didn’t want to let this Daniel go… especially knowing there was a chance he wouldn’t live to see him get this big, to hear him laugh or call him ‘dada’.

Maybe Castiel was reading Dean’s mind, because the last measure of resistance melted out of him, and he nodded. “We can stay the night.”

Dean smiled. “Thanks, Cas.”

It might have been just a dream, but it was the best night Dean could remember in a really long time… maybe in his entire life. The only way it could have been better was if Sam was there, too. As it was, it was pretty fucking awesome. A heavenly field of silver and gold, Castiel watching over them, and Dean tossing Daniel in the air to watch the boy squeal in delight and flap his wings in an uncoordinated attempt to fly.

By the end, Dean was proud of the fact that sometimes Daniel didn’t fall back into his hands quite as quickly after being thrown into the air.

**********

Sam didn’t sleep for shit most of the night, too worried about his nephew. He laid awake, tossing and turning and wondering when Castiel would make it back… if he did at all. 

He was scared for Daniel. He found it strange how a child they had not anticipated having to work their lives around had quickly become so integral to the way of Winchester. The boy was already as much a fixture in the family as Dean or Sam himself.

Sam didn’t want to think about something happening to Daniel.

It was some god-awful hour when Sam heard the faint mumble of voices coming from the next bedroom… Dean’s voice, which Sam would know anywhere, but also the low rumble of Castiel’s. Sam felt the tension that had been held up tight in his body just bleed out of him in a rush, and while a part of him wanted to jump up, go into Dean’s bedroom, and get answers, he didn’t. Castiel was back, that’s what mattered, so Sam _finally_ got some sleep.

Once he got there, he stayed there; he didn’t wake up until nearly noon the next day. The fact that the world was still there to wake up to had to be a good sign.

When Sam staggered his way down to the kitchen, he saw the back door thrown open and Bobby in his wheelchair parked in front of it, watching something outside.

“Hey, Bobby.”

“I was about to send Dean up to check you for a pulse.”

“It’s not _that_ late,” Sam protested around a yawn, though Bobby’s snort suggested otherwise.

He came up alongside Bobby and looked out to see what the older hunter was watching. He couldn’t help but smile. Dean had finished replacing the Impala’s busted windows and seemed to be just lavishing extra love and attention on his car with a good wash. Castiel was sitting nearby on a shut cooler, watching Dean work with the same intense attention he gave everything. Daniel was lying on Castiel’s lap, his feet at Castiel’s belly and his head at Castiel’s knees. At first glance, it had the hallmarks of Castiel’s notoriously nonchalant attitude toward the baby (laid across the angel’s lap like a book Castiel had been reading a moment ago), but as Sam watched, he saw Castiel lift a hand and brush his fingers softly over Daniel’s head. It was gentle. Not something done out of necessity, but choice. Sam would daresay it was affectionate. Dean glanced over at the two, said something Sam couldn’t make out, then Castiel moved from touching Daniel’s hair to dancing his fingers over his own thigh near Daniel’s body. The baby kicked vigorously. Dean laughed.

For all that the world stood poised to end, they looked so content. Sam took them in, their manner and their closeness, and thought ‘that’s my family’ with an unexpected swell of tenderness.

“How long have they been out there?” Sam asked.

“Couple hours, at least.”

“Yeah… and how long have you been watching them?” Sam teased.

Bobby grunted evasively, which meant Sam wasn’t the only one caught staring at a family – one he could call his own – like others might stop and gape if a unicorn wandered into their front yard.

Sam went to fetch himself a cup of coffee (lukewarm by this hour, but Sam was good at drinking java most other human beings deemed unpalatable). 

When he came back to resume silent watch alongside Bobby, Dean had wandered over to Castiel and Daniel. When Daniel saw Dean, he squirmed and flapped his arms at the hunter. For some reason, that made Dean grin like an idiot. Then he seemed to be trying to explain something to Castiel. Castiel looked up at Dean with that constipated, head-cocked look of incomprehension on his face. Finally, Dean flicked the wet chamois over his shoulder, squatted down in front of them, cupped Daniel’s head with one hand, and kissed the baby’s dark hair. Castiel watched like a student of archaeology studying the loincloth-clad natives, almost absently letting his fingers skirt over the patch of Daniel’s hair that Dean had just anointed. 

It was possibly the most weirdly-normal Sam had ever seen his brother.

“This could do it for him, you know,” Bobby said out of nowhere.

Sam had been so caught up watching his brother with his angel and his son that he blinked a second, trying to catch up with Bobby’s train of thought. “What?”

“Your brother.” Bobby nodded out the doorway toward them. “If the world wasn’t coming down around our ears, I think this could actually make him happy. Who the hell would have thought?”

“That having a baby with a dude angel would be Dean’s apple-pie? No one in their right mind would have thought that.” But Bobby might be right. Except for one tiny detail. Sam smirked. “It’s missing one thing, though.” At Bobby’s expectant look, Sam said, “A woman.”

Bobby lifted his eyebrows mildly. “Why a woman?”

“Come on, Bobby,” Sam chuckled, “Dean not having sex? That’s like breathing to him. No way is Dean swearing off sex for this warped Norman Rockwell.”

“Don’t have to have a woman to have sex,” Bobby said off-handedly.

If Sam had been taking a drink of his coffee just then, he would have spit it all over the floor. “ _What_?”

“Oh, like you haven’t thought it with as much eye-fucking as they do.”

Sam stared down at Bobby, flabbergasted. When the older hunter looked up at him with a look that dared him to say he was wrong, Sam stepped around him and toward the door, setting his cup on the counter without looking. “Okay, I’m just going to go outside and pretend this conversation ended three minutes ago.”

Bobby muttered something that Sam didn’t catch as he descended the porch ramp and walked over toward his brother and Castiel.

Castiel saw him approaching first and offered a greeting. “Hello, Sam.”

“Hey, Cas… good to see you back. Uh… so is everything all right?”

“Yes. I had to be certain Michael had not perished in the attack yesterday. He hadn’t.”

“Well, good… I guess.” Sam shrugged awkwardly. “I mean, as good as it can get to know the guy that wants to ride my brother like a mechanical bull is still out there.” Which led him to thinking about Dean getting ridden by an angel. Then he was thinking about his brother and angel sex. He was going to kick Bobby’s ass, wheelchair-bound or not.

“Yeah, well,” Dean turned to his brother, “for once, kinda nice to have a last resort.”

Suspicion and dread had a field day in Sam’s gut over that comment. Sam narrowed his eyes at Dean. “That sounds like you’ve actually been considering saying yes to Michael.”

“Not if I can help it,” Dean muttered darkly. “Talk about a bag of dicks.”

“Okay, now _that_ sounds like you’ve actually met the guy… jesus, how long did I sleep?” The joke was a cover for how monumentally discomfited Sam actually felt.

Dean snorted and shifted toward Castiel, like a planet caught in an elliptical orbit being yanked from its apogee and pulled back to its perigee. He ended up back in Daniel’s line of sight. The baby saw him, his blue eyes lit up, and his arms flapped spastically. Dean grinned like a buffoon again. Even Castiel almost kind of smiled.

“What’s he doing that for?” Sam asked, because it was new. Daniel hadn’t been waving for attention yesterday.

“Showing his stuff,” Dean said with a hint of pride in his voice. He looked at Cas. “Do his wings flap, too, when he does that?”

“Yes… he’s not coordinated enough to purposefully move one without the other.”

Dean got this look on his face that Sam read as meaning he thought it totally kicked ass to have a son with wings. It was a far cry from the Dean Winchester of just a few years ago, who had two strict categories: humans and things you hunt. If he thought his brother would stand to hear it, Sam would tell Dean how proud he was of him. But Dean would give him no end of shit for saying something sappy like that, so instead he just watched and indulged in a secret smile.

“Hey,” Dean took the chamois off his shoulder and tossed it at Sam, “since you’re finally up, you can help.”

Normally, Sam would find some way to get out of the ritual car wash… he never could worship the car during a wash like Dean thought she deserved, and it invariably led to an argument over mental health and warning signs of psychological illness. Besides which, his conscience was telling him they should be focusing their time on coming up with a way to defeat Lucifer.

But at that moment, with Dean looking halfway to no-shit happy, Castiel back, Daniel healthy…

Fuck it… they deserved this stolen moment. Besides, if anyone had had some epiphany on how to take out the Devil, surely they would have said so already. But no one had. Taking time to wash one car wouldn’t be the end of the world.

“Sure.” Sam shook out the chamois and angled for the car while Dean skipped (as Sam would forever-after insist) over to a pile of supplies to find some wax.

Of course Sam knew the calm couldn’t last (if you could call an earthquake ‘calm’), but he had hoped it would last a little longer than an hour. At least long enough for Dean to put on a second coat of wax.

But life wasn’t that kind to them, and when Bobby came rolling down the back porch ramp and toward them barely an hour after Sam had joined his brother and the angel outside, Sam knew from the look on the older hunter’s face that the shit was about to hit the fan. Again.

“No,” Dean balked when he saw Bobby coming. He knew Bobby’s ‘there’s trouble’ look as well as Sam did.

“Afraid so,” Bobby grumbled as he stopped near the group. “For the record, I’m giving serious consideration to having my phone disconnected.”

Dean’s shoulders drooped and he came around the front of the Impala to stand next to Sam. “Okay… what now?”

“We’ve got a big problem brewing in Michigan… I just got a call from a hunter I know who’s there now, and she says there have been a rash of possessions just since midday yesterday… too many for her to handle.”

“Exactly how many are we talking about here?” Sam asked.

Bobby looked hesitant. “She didn’t have numbers, but Cait’s not the type to call for help unless the sharks are circling and her life-raft’s going down.” Bobby looked grim. “Cait used to frequent the Roadhouse; she called Ellen yesterday for backup. Ellen, Jo, and Strafe are already on their way to help. Just between then and now, it’s gotten worse to the point she got in touch with me for more reinforcements. 

“I just got off the phone with Gerald – sending him that way from Omaha.”

“Geez, Bobby,” Sam interjected, “and you want me, Dean, and Cas on it, too? That’s _a lot_ of hunters.”

“Yeah, why is it the Apocalypse means we have to start being team players?” Dean grumbled petulantly.

“If the end of the world can’t get this surly lot to play nice, I imagine nothing will,” Bobby shrugged. He glanced between the brothers with a frown. “Cait says this is an ‘all hands on deck’ situation, and she’s not one to exaggerate. If she says all hell’s breaking loose, I believe her.”

Bobby trusting and vouching for this hunter that they didn’t know was all the Winchesters needed in terms of establishing credibility.

“When, _exactly_ , did this large-scale rash of possessions in Michigan start happening?” Sam asked suspiciously.

Bobby wasn’t stupid, and he knew Sam wasn’t either. He looked right at Sam and answered, “About an hour after the Omaha quake.”

Dean caught on then. “Crap, Lucifer’s not wasting any time, is he?”

“He could hardly afford to,” Castiel noted from his place sitting on the cooler with Daniel in his lap. “He lost ground when his trap yesterday failed to capture Michael. He is probably hoping that acting now will catch Heaven while they are still trying to recover from their own losses.”

“Which means saddle up, boys.”

“You suck at motivational speeches, Bobby,” Dean quipped humorlessly.

“Just get your asses in gear, you idjits.”

Sam moved at once to do just that… but the fact that Dean didn’t budge an inch in kind drew Sam up short. He looked toward his brother, puzzled.

Dean was standing there rigidly, eyes on the ground and his expression frozen in a bitter scowl. He looked over at Daniel in Castiel’s lap. Then he looked back toward Bobby. The tense line of his shoulders could cut someone stupid enough to get too close. “Bobby… you think you could keep Daniel here with you?”

Sam froze.

Bobby stared at Dean a second, unblinking and expression unreadable. He cast one thoughtful look toward the baby, then resettled his gaze on Dean. “Listen, son… under other circumstances, you know I’d watch him for you.”

“But…?” Dean challenged testily. 

“ _But_ … wherever he’s going to be is where Castiel is going to be a good chunk of the time… right?”

“Yeah… Daniel needs to be close to him.”

“And where do you need the angel right now?”

Dean stiffened… any tenser, and he’d pull something. “With us.” The admission seemed pulled out of him at great pains. Sam was a little worried about the storm building underneath Dean’s exterior.

Bobby’s expression softened a little. “Screwy as it sounds, the kid’s actually better off going with you.”

That was it… Dean snapped. “We’re heading straight into a place swarming with demons! How is that better? How is _any of this_ okay?”

Castiel looked taken aback by Dean’s outburst. He stood slowly, scooping Daniel up off his lap and into his arms as he did so. His movement caught Dean’s eye, and when he had the hunter’s attention the angel said calmly, “I would rather not have to split my attention between you two and Daniel. I can easier protect all of you if you’re together.”

“Do you even see how fucked up this is, Cas?” Dean asked hoarsely. “Taking my kid hunting? Having him tag along on the mission to destroy Lucifer? For god’s sake, he’s just a _baby_.” 

Something was coming out of hibernation in Sam, thrashing around issues he thought buried years ago.

“Daniel was born in the crucible,” Castiel answered in a maddeningly even tone. “This life that he was born into is his world. Sheltering him from the Apocalypse is not possible.”

“Damnit, Cas!” Dean growled angrily, “Learn when to fucking lie!”

“We don’t have time for lies,” Bobby noted glumly.

“And I’m no better than Dad!” Dean snapped back.

Sam sucked in a breath.

Bobby had the decency to look away.

Even Castiel seemed uncertain how to respond to that statement.

It was Sam who had the history to venture, “It’s not the same, Dean…”

“Yeah, how is this different? Hell, Sam, you of all people should know how fucked up it is to charge off into a demon infestation and take my son along. You hated Dad for doing that to us. So how am I any better doing that to Daniel?”

“Perhaps you’re not,” Castiel’s powerful voice boomed with impatience. “And perhaps John Winchester was not the terrible father you imagine him to be. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, because there’s no choice.”

Dean stood there and almost trembled with fury. Sam just waited, on edge, wondering what Dean would do. On the rare occasions Sam had seen his brother this angry, he usually lashed out.

Sure enough, Dean turned abruptly and kicked the bucket of soapy water he’d been using on the Impala. The suds spread out quickly and began to soak into the ground, turning the dirt into bubbly mud.

“Fuck…” Dean hissed. Then he gave the over-turned bucket a good punt across the yard for good measure. “ _Fuck_.”

Sam waited it out, the way one hunkered down and waited out a hurricane.

Dean’s spurious anger turned into more of a simmering rage, coloring everything Dean did and said but still letting him do the job. “Fine… take my son into a demon hot-spot, no problem. Father-of-the-year material right here.” Dean sighed roughly and turned back toward Bobby.

For what it was worth, Bobby looked like he felt for the elder Winchester brother. Sam was sure the sentiment was genuine, because Bobby’s opinion of John Winchester had never been very high.

“Okay, we’ll go,” Dean grumbled. As if it had ever actually been an option not to. For all that the Winchesters were fighting the notion of destiny, they seemed to walk in lock-step with its kissing cousin a hell of a lot.

“I’ll give Sam Cait’s phone number so she can work out the details with you once you get closer.”

“Sure, fine, whatever… so where exactly are we going, anyway?”

“Detroit.”

**********

It was one of the most awkward car rides Sam could remember them having in a really, really long time. Dean was driving like the road had offended him and the Impala was his blunt instrument for punishing it. His hands were clamped tight on the steering wheel, his eyes locked forward like a wolf on the hunt, and his jaw muscle kept doing that ‘I’m holding in so much man-pain’ twitch that Sam knew to tread carefully around. Castiel was in the backseat, cradling Daniel as usual, but it was a play of contrasts. His hold on Daniel was gentle, but his expression was stony with barely-masked displeasure… and no one radiated and fumed like an angel did.

Sam was just keeping his head down until something distracted everyone from the spat that had precipitated the tension in the car. 

They’d been leaving Bobby’s, bound for Detroit, when Castiel had stated he would fly on ahead into the fray and see what trouble he could mitigate on his own before the Winchesters got there. It was practical; Castiel could be there in the time it took him to think ‘Detroit’.

But Dean, already in a foul mood, had had a shit-fit. He snapped, “Not a chance… there’s no telling what’ll happen once we get there that could split us up, so until then, you’re going to sit back there with Daniel and let him stock up on all the grace from you that he can.”

Just remembering the way Castiel had bristled and _loomed_ at that made Sam swallow. He wasn’t the target of the angel’s burning stare, but he’d backed up a step all the same. Suffice it to say, Castiel had not taken kindly to being commanded. Sam was certain they were going to hear that ‘I don’t serve you’ speech again (probably in that same hostile tone of voice he’d used the first time, too). He was very surprised when Castiel didn’t refuse to obey on principle alone. Instead, he collected his son and got in the backseat of the Impala.

But Dean wasn’t placated by that very much, if his belligerent glower while he drove was any indication. And in the hours they’d been on the road, Castiel hadn’t gotten over being bossed around like a mindless foot soldier. He sat in the back, tensely silent, and the annoyance coming off of him was so real Sam could swear he felt it raising the hairs on the back of his neck.

Sam removed himself from the situation by doing his best to be invisible or acting as the contact with Cait. Not that she was much for phone conversation. After giving Sam an address for the place in Detroit where she’d set up base and a brusque suggestion that they get the lead out, she hung up without saying goodbye.

So, basically, worst family road trip ever.

If he thought he could say a word without getting visually skewered, Sam would have told Castiel that Dean was being an ass because he was mad at himself for being a potentially-shitty dad, not that he was angry at the angel for anything. Or he’d tell Dean that Castiel had suffered and sacrificed so much for his free will, so it was really douchey for Dean to seemingly strip it from him, regardless of how unintentionally.

But Sam figured he’d be taking his life in his hands either way, so he just scrunched down and kept quiet. It made for a long trip. So awkwardly silent, in fact, that Sam was the one digging out a classic rock cassette and sticking it in the tape deck… just anything to break the oppressive silence.

They were about two hours out when Dean turned down the music (not that it had been loud to begin with… while Dean cared nothing for his own eardrums or his brother’s, apparently he cared about his son’s). “Getting close… you should check in with that chick,” he said to Sam.

Sam nodded, pulled out his phone, and dialed the number.

It went straight to voicemail… no ringing.

“I’m not getting through.”

“She not answering?” Dean asked.

“Acting more like either her phone’s off, dead, or not getting any reception.”

Dean frowned. “Give Ellen a call… they left half a day before we did; they should be there by now.”

Sam tried Ellen’s number.

“Same thing, straight to voicemail,” Sam reported.

“That can’t be good,” Dean muttered. Not that it stopped their headlong rush toward the city. Because that was the Winchester way.

If the problem with the phones was the first sign of things being worse than they’d feared, the roadblock was the next. They could see the skyscrapers of Detroit swelling in the Impala’s windshield, all harsh angles and sharp edges, when the road ahead was blocked by police cars and barricades barring passage into the city.

Police cars, but no sign of police.

Dean stopped the car in the middle of the road and they all stared at the eerie scene. It smacked of those end of the world type movies that Jess used to like but Sam never could, just because he knew too many ways it could actually happen.

“Think we should try to find another road into the city?” Sam asked, his voice strangely loud in the car.

Dean tapped his thumb on the steering wheel. “Might not be time for that,” he mused. Then he glanced back at Castiel. “If I stash the car, could you angel airway us to that address Sam got from that chick?”

Castiel’s anger over their little domestic squabble seemingly stepped aside for the warrior facing his enemies. “I can.”

Dean made a u-turn in the middle of the road and backtracked until he found an access road off the highway. He pulled off the road, tucked the Impala behind a copse of trees, and without a word they all got out. Dean and Sam pulled bulging duffles of supplies to combat an Apocalyptic-scale demon possession party out of the trunk, then both brothers turned to Castiel.

“I need you to hold Daniel,” Castiel told Dean.

Dean took a steeling breath. “Yeah, literally be the one carrying him into this clusterfuck, why not?” he bitched to himself, but he shouldered his bag and took his son from Castiel.

When his hands were free, Castiel lifted two fingers to each brother’s forehead…

… and suddenly they were inside the city.

Sam staggered a bit trying to orient himself to their new surroundings. They were at the backside of the same towering buildings they’d seen from the road before. They were giants looming over a residential section of tightly-packed houses. The streets were empty, and it might look like a typical school/workday with everyone elsewhere, but the random car abandoned sideways in the street with doors thrown open and others with alarms endlessly wailing shattered that illusion. Somewhere out of sight, but not far enough for comfort, were the muffled sounds of screaming. There were columns of smoke to the left… somewhere on another block, homes were burning. Police sirens were screaming, first from the right, then the left, then ahead, then behind. The house across the street had a bay window that had been broken. Glass littered the yard, fanning out around an armchair lying overturned in the grass. A few houses down the street had boards hastily nailed over the windows. Others stood with front doors open, hinting at so many grim reasons the world so clearly on the cusp of ending would be welcome to come and go at will.

It looked like a disaster zone, but neither Winchester got much chance to dwell on it. Almost the moment they landed, Castiel’s head snapped around purposefully. Like a bloodhound catching a scent.

“What’s up, Cas?” Dean asked.

“There are a large number of possessions taking place not far from here.”

“Large number like…”

“Like Lucifer has opened another Hellmouth and the escaping demons are finding hosts.”

“Well, fuck,” Dean said.

Castiel glanced at them a second before he said, “I should go close it before any more demons are released.”

“Close it _how_?” Dean asked.

But the last syllables were said to empty air when Castiel vanished on Dean in mid-sentence.

“Damnit,” Dean grumbled.

Sam turned around to look at the house they’d landed in front of. It was small, narrow, and its windows were boarded up. The numbers on the façade matched those given to him by Cait.

“Come on, Dean,” Sam tugged at Dean’s elbow. “I’m betting this isn’t the kind of neighborhood we want to hang around outside in.”

Sam had barely finished knocking on the door when it was opened and Ellen was looking back at them, her face stern and determined. Behind her stood Strafe, right arm in a cast from elbow to wrist, and at his side an African American man in a police uniform that Sam didn’t know.

“Good to see you boys,” Ellen said gruffly, “now get your asses inside before someone sees you.”

They didn’t have to be told twice.

Inside, the brothers dropped their bags in the foyer and Sam looked around while Ellen was padlocking the front door behind them. Sam did a quick survey of the room. It was a fairly typical middle class home, but even here there were signs of what was going on outside. The coffee table was sitting at an odd angle, and there was a dark stain on the rug that Sam knew had to be blood.

It was also crowded. In addition to Ellen, Strafe, and the cop, Jo was standing watch at a window, rifle in her hands as she peeked out through the slats boarded over the glass. She cast the Winchesters a glance and nodded in acknowledgement before turning her eyes back to her job. Beyond a small hallway (where the foot of a staircase was visible) was a kitchen, where a man in his forties with salt-and-pepper hair and a hunter’s fashion sense stood next to a woman easily ten years younger with close-cropped dark hair and one side of her neck sporting a tattoo. On the couch, curled in the corner with her face buried in her arms, was another woman… and though her age was hard to guess without seeing her face, she felt young, closer to Jo’s age.

“Where’s your angel?” Ellen asked as she came around them.

“Sensed what might be a Hellmouth nearby, so he went off to take care of it,” Dean answered. 

At that moment, Daniel made a noise to get attention (sounded to Sam like his ‘I’m hungry’ noise).

At the baby’s half-cry, the woman on the couch made a choking sound, her body shuddered, and her head snapped up to seek the source of the noise. She was young, though the grief on her face made her look ancient, too. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. When she saw Daniel in Dean’s arms, she started to sob again.

Suddenly, the tattooed woman was in Dean’s face, not intimidated by the good six inches of height Dean had on her. She glared up at him furiously. The tattoo on her neck was an ornate bird, Sam could tell now.

“Why did you bring a baby?” she asked lowly.

“Sorry, the sitter canceled,” Dean snapped back.

The woman gave him a mighty ‘go to hell’ look, then turned toward the woman on the couch. “Hannah…?”

Hannah shook her head, stood, and fled up the stairs. For a second, the tattooed woman seemed to consider going after the younger one, then she just kind of sagged and didn’t. She turned back to the Winchesters, eyeing both of them bitterly.

And by process of elimination, Sam ventured, “You must be Cait.”

She looked at him, sized him up, then gave a curt nod. “Caitlyn Phoenix. That was my baby sister, Hannah. I gather you know the Harvelles.”

“Don’t know him, though,” Dean looked toward the man in the kitchen. 

Said man came into the living room. “Gerald Anderson.”

“I’m Officer Nathan Winters,” the cop introduced himself without waiting to be asked.

Dean looked around at the gathered group. “And is everyone here a hunter?”

“Hannah’s not,” Cait said… though really, Sam thought that was pretty obvious without them needing to be told.

“I’m _the law_ ,” Nathan replied flatly, clearly leery of the ‘hunter’ title, like one of the uninitiated.

Which was not the way to win Dean’s trust.

“Okay,” Sam quickly jumped in, “looks like we have a couple of minutes… maybe someone could fill us in?”

Cait started. “I was working a case in Ann Arbor when my little sister called me, said there was something weird going on with her husband, Rob. She said he wasn’t acting like himself: behaving violently, scaring my sister that he would actually hurt her or their daughter – and this is a guy who was not a violent person. I’ve been in the business about fifteen years, so Hannah knows if something’s hinky, she calls her big sis.

“I got here and Rob was… he’d killed their four-month-old daughter, Elsi, and had Hannah trapped in an upstairs bathroom. He’d just about busted through the door when I got here.”

“So you…” Sam began.

Cait looked meaningfully at the bloodstain on the rug. “I wasted him… I had to. He was coming at me with a knife like a maniac. I don’t think he even heard me when I tried to warn him off.”

“So, demon possession?” Sam offered.

Cait hesitated. “It _sounds_ like it, but some things aren’t adding up. I shot him with a 9 mil, and that did it… no rock salt, no exorcism, no black smoke… but I can promise you that _wasn’t_ Rob.”

“No way Rob would do something like that,” Nathan chimed in as he stepped closer. “I knew Rob Masters. He was a stand-up guy. He doted on his daughter… I can’t believe he killed her.”

“How did you get balled up in this?” Dean asked.

“Hannah called the police on her cell phone from inside the bathroom when Rob was trying to break his way in. I came on the scene just seconds before Ms. Phoenix shot Rob. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes…”

“I’d be in cuffs for murder instead of being believed for calling it self-defense,” Cait finished snidely.

Nathan looked hard at Cait before returning his attention to the Winchesters. “I’d called for reinforcements, a team for body pick-up… but they never came.”

“That’s when the first demons started to swarm through this neighborhood,” Ellen said somberly. “Jo and I came in after them, but we saw them rip through another street… they were like rabid animals. People tearing through the streets, attacking people left and right… I tell you, boys, it’s strange and plenty creepy. And that’s coming from a seasoned hunter.”

“What have you done so far?” Sam asked, noting the Devil’s Trap drawn hastily in magic marker on the hardwood floor in front of the door they’d just passed through and the tell-tale mess from salt lines on the window sills.

“Found out that exorcisms don’t work on them,” Jo said from the window.

“How’s that possible?” Dean asked.

“Beats us,” Ellen said. “We thought maybe someone was putting binding brands on them… wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.” Sam couldn’t help his eyes flicking toward Jo. “But Rob’s the only one we’ve had a close look at, and there’s nothing on him. Cuts and bruises, sure, but binding work, no.”

“Did you call Bobby to see what he thought?” Dean asked.

“Tried… phones stopped working about six hours ago. Landlines, cell phones, police radio… everything.”

“That’s strange,” Sam said.

“Oh, gets better than that,” Gerald quipped, “come look at this shit.” With that, he turned back toward the kitchen. Sam glanced briefly at Dean then followed Gerald.

At the kitchen window, Gerald pulled back the curtain and pointed toward a gap in the boards nailed to the frame. “That there, I’ve seen it other places in town, too. Got any ideas? ‘Cause we’re stumped.”

Sam ducked down to peer through the boards, looking for whatever had the house full of hunters scratching their heads.

“Oh, shit,” Sam cursed.

“You know what that means?” Gerald asked.

“Yeah… Dean, get in here!”

Dean turned up at Sam’s elbow a few seconds later. “What’s up?”

“See for yourself,” Sam gestured out the window.

Dean crouched and looked. He drew back sharply. “Oh, shit.”

“What? What’s it mean?” Gerald asked impatiently.

Sam almost didn’t want to say. But there was no denying the graffiti on the building on the other side of the alley. The word was spelled out in large, bright orange letters against the dark red brick.

_Croatoan._

**********

The pucker in the fabric of space and time that was caused by a large number of humans being taken over by demons emanated from some manner of warehouse. Castiel followed the sense of wrong to its source and found himself outside a large building with a plain front, large metal doors, and no windows. Castiel stood outside a moment, pondering the situation. It was odd for a Hellmouth to be centered in a building, only because the effects a portal to the underworld had on the physical space near it. Most manmade structures would buckle under the strain. Then again, it did appear to be a sturdy, stout building… and if Lucifer wanted to open one in an urban area, doing so within a building seemed unavoidable.

Castiel surveyed the surrounding area, but it looked no different from the place where he had left the Winchesters… civilization given over to chaos and disarray. That would be expected from the land in the immediate proximity to a Hellmouth.

Shaking out his arm and clasping the hilt of his angel blade as it shifted into physicality, Castiel moved forward. He used the door (maybe he was more fallen than he thought) and was met with pitch black. He chose to see within it – that, at least, still separated him from mortal man – and he realized it was a narrow foyer area (more like a hallway he’d entered at an intersection). The walls were painted black, and no more than a dozen steps in front of him was yet another entryway, this one with a long black curtain for a door.

When he pushed through that, he stopped to assess the scene.

Inside, the place was dark, but not as pitch as the receiving area had been. The floor was plain concrete and wet in places. The walls were strewn with garish, reflective paper stars, luminescent neon paint, and mismatched graffiti (depicting both crude artwork and words). The ceiling was cluttered with reflective orbs and multi-colored lights. Though he had never been in one himself, Castiel knew the type of establishment… a night club for the gathering of sexually eager humans to gather and rub against each other, usually involving copious amounts of alcohol and loud music.

He wondered why Dean wasn’t a fan of them… they sounded like the type of place that would be to his liking, and yet he overwhelmingly favored bars.

Any further thoughts or observations about the room Castiel might have taken note of were pushed aside when the angel noticed movement near the back of the massive building. He stepped forward for a better look.

When he was no more than a quarter of the way into the building, he stopped and stared in incomprehension at what was happening.

The back of the club was packed with humans. A thick, writhing press of them. Easily one hundred men and women all together. Not a single one of them was upright, and when Castiel squinted, he could see why. Every one of them to a person had had their legs broken. They were a pile of humans, unable to run, no way to escape what was happening to them. Swarming over the great mass of humanity, like flies, was the telltale smoke of demons. They were looping, coiling in the air, arching up into the darkness, doubling back, and forcing themselves into any available mouth open on a moan or scream. Each human was possessed no longer than a few seconds before the demon was spilling up and out again, doing its sadistic aerial acrobatics before diving into another poor soul. It was a flesh-knot of the possessed, the recently possessed, those damned to be possessed soon again.

Castiel froze, perplexed. His senses felt each possession like a twinge of nausea (he knew the feeling ‘nauseated’ now to be able to call it that). It resonated wrong.

And the way the demons were jumping in and out of humans in quick succession, from a distance it had read to his angelic senses as the resulting mass-possessions that followed the opening of a Hellmouth.

But this was not a Hellmouth, though it had been orchestrated to fool an angel into believing it was one.

A trap.

Castiel was starting to draw back, sword at the ready, when he heard a noise he knew well from traveling with the Winchesters. The sound of matches scratching on a matchbook lighting strip.

He whirled toward the door, where a demon, all black eyes and blood-thirsty grin, dropped a handful of flame.

Castiel tensed to move against her, before the matches could even fall, when the same noise came from his left, his right, behind him. Castiel turned in a circle and saw a ring of demons, those hardly-lucky few left the use of their legs, each letting a matchbook of fire fall to the ground.

When the matches landed, as one, they ignited lines in the concrete, fire racing out and around in a circle. The speed at which the fire spread and the pulse of gut-reaction panic that flared in Castiel told him that the wetness he’d noticed on the floor before had not been spilled beer… it was holy oil.

The circle made a fiery corral around Castiel… then snakes of oil laid on the ground began to lick their way inward, toward him.

Castiel lurched backward from the fire, retreating just ahead of the flames. He flinched from a spider web pattern coming in at him from the opposite direction. For a second, Castiel thought the closing trails of fire would meet in the center and burn him. He thought this was how he would die.

He regretted that he would not see Dean and Daniel again.

Then the fire cut left and right, coiled around him, and before long Castiel found himself standing in a circle of fire within a circle of fire, the two rings connected with paths of flame like the spokes of a wagon wheel.

Castiel turned in a tight circle, tucking his wings in close to avoid the flames. He was trapped.

“Worked like a charm,” the first demon, the Mediterranean-looking woman, said with a wicked smile. The demons doing the body-swap dance near the back settled into whichever body they found first and waited. There were more humans than demons, so not all were quieted by a demon invader. From those who were not possessed, the wails and moans continued.

The demon who’d first lit the fire looked toward her comrades in the broken humans and snarled, “Shut them up.”

And with that, the demons inside went ballistic, tearing up their hosts from the inside out. When the demons rushed out, the humans left behind were mere corpses. The same fate befell the remaining humans, until the club was cast into deafening silence. Their work done, the black smoke creatures vanished through air vents and the cracks of doors… no doubt off in search of meatsuits that could do more than writhe and die for the purpose of attracting angels.

The ambulatory demons who’d sprung the trap paced the burning perimeter that held Castiel captive. The leader, the woman, among them turned to a companion and said, “Tell Lucifer we have him.”

Castiel stiffened.

The second demon disappeared into the darkness. 

Then it was down to a waiting game.

Castiel wondered how long it would take for Lucifer to show up.

As it turned out, not long.

The notorious fallen angel himself pushed through the black curtain only a few minutes later and settled smug, smarmy eyes on Castiel.

Then Lucifer froze. The arrogance in his expression gave way to genuine surprise.

Castiel tensed, sword still gripped tightly in his hand, despite the fact that several feet of holy fire separated him from his brother.

When Lucifer recovered, he huffed. “Well, well. Castiel. I have to admit, you were the last angel I expected. How are you not dead? Last time I remember seeing you, you were in some miserable cabin tearing in two.”

Castiel straightened his shoulders defiantly. “I believe humans have a saying that involves a fat woman that applies in this situation.”

Lucifer shook his head. “I’m impressed, little brother… how’d you do it?” He raked an invasive look up and down Castiel’s body. “The shattered one is gone. Huh. I didn’t think any of our haughty brothers and sisters on high would lower themselves to save a fallen angel.”

Castiel said nothing. He would not reveal Daniel’s existence to Lucifer.

It didn’t seem to trouble him. “You really are full of surprises. You certainly surprised _me_.” Lucifer slowly paced along the fire line, all the devil-may-care affectations in the world utterly failing to mask his dark power. “Though as interesting as this development is, you weren’t the angel I was looking to trap.”

“You mean I’m not Michael.”

“No offense, Castiel, but you don’t worry me. Intrigue me, yes, but I was trying to eliminate an actual threat.” Lucifer stopped, cocked his head, and a dark, happy light flickered in the firelight dancing out of his eyes. “Then again… if _you’re_ here, that must mean the Winchesters are around.”

“I’m alone,” Castiel said quickly.

“Please… don’t even try; you don’t lie well. And even if you weren’t a shitty liar, I know you better than that… you hardly go anywhere without your precious humans.”

The thought of Lucifer going after the Winchesters – and Daniel – made Castiel brash. He edged closer to the fire holding him prisoner, desperate to get out and fight the Devil. His wing came too close to the holy fire and was immediately burned. He jerked back in pain, shaking with frustration and the agony of even just a touch of holy fire burning through his grace.

Lucifer chuckled. “Oh, you’re cute, Castiel. You know, for a second, I was disappointed to see it was you my demons had captured… but this might be even better. Thank you for bringing Sam Winchester right to me.”

“ _No_ ,” Castiel barked.

Lucifer grinned. The fire made his smile a mouthful of orange and red. “Oh, definitely yes.” Something angry and twisted replaced the twinkle of cunning and cocksure in Lucifer’s eyes. His true self shone through in the firelight. “And I’m through being a nice guy – I don’t have the luxury anymore. Sam Winchester will consent to be my vessel, no matter what it takes. This world will be brought to its knees; you can count on that, brother.”

Lucifer turned to leave.

“Lucifer!” Castiel called after him.

Lucifer stopped and looked over his shoulder at the trapped angel. “You just sit tight here, Castiel… when I’ve taken Sam Winchester, I’ll be back for you.”

Then Lucifer was gone.

And Castiel was helpless, trapped in a burning cage of holy fire.

**********

“Damnit,” Dean snarled as he looked down at his cell phone showing that he had no service when he tried to call Castiel.

“I told you,” Ellen said as she settled on the arm of the couch. Everyone was in the living room, gathered together so Dean and Sam could tell them everything they knew about what they were really facing. Even Hannah had been hauled out of her upstairs exile and was currently tucked in a corner of the couch, her older sister sitting with an arm around the younger woman’s shoulders. Hannah wasn’t crying, but she didn’t look far from it.

It didn’t help that Daniel was crying. Sam was walking the floor in front of the coffee table with the baby in his arms, trying to quiet Daniel with no success. Finally, Sam had to turn to his brother and admit defeat. “He’s not going for it, man… he’s hungry.”

Dean pressed his lips in a thin line and closed his phone, shoving it back in his pocket (for all the good it would do). He turned toward Sam and looked down at Daniel. Much as he wanted to put Daniel first right now, a hungry baby was really not their top problem.

“I’ve got… I have formula,” Hannah offered weakly from the couch.

Dean turned to her. She was uncurling tensely from her fetal position on the sofa, starting and stopping to move toward the kitchen several times.

Before Dean could say anything, Cait did. “Thanks… that would really help them out, sis.”

Hannah nodded stiffly and went into the kitchen.

When she was gone, Cait looked toward Dean and said lowly enough that her sister wouldn’t overhear, “Let her make herself useful… she could use the distraction.”

Dean didn’t argue. 

“And in the meantime,” Gerald said, “why don’t you tell us what that word on the wall means.”

Dean sighed. “Sam and I have run into this before, a few years back. This isn’t demon possession… it’s a virus.”

“A demonic virus, more specifically,” Sam joined in. “The behavior mimics possession at first, but the level of uncontrolled violence is much higher. And the typical methods of combating demons won’t work on them. Because they’re not demons, they’re _people_ , but sick, mad people.”

“A virus?” Nathan asked skeptically, standing next to the couch with his arms crossed over his uniform-clad chest.

“That’s right… last time we encountered this ‘Croatoan virus’, we were holed up in a medical clinic. Tests the doctor did showed that the blood from the victims have traces of sulfur.”

Ellen exchanged a look with Strafe. 

At that moment, Hannah came back into the room with a bottle of formula in her hand. She approached Sam and awkwardly started to offer him the bottle, then stopped. She was staring down at Daniel, expression harrowed and sharp with longing. 

“Uh… do you want to feed him?” Sam offered gently.

Dean turned a sharp look over at Sam, who met his gaze with the puppy eyes of doom.

Hannah sort of flinched at first, then she bit her lip and nodded. “Yeah, I… yeah, okay.”

Sam checked with Dean before doing anything. Dean looked between Hannah, Daniel, and Sam a moment, then gave a small nod. Sam gave Hannah one of his ‘I’m the most not-dangerous person in the whole wide world’ looks and very carefully laid the baby in her arms. Hannah sort of whimpered at first while Dean watched her closely. He had to admit, emotionally wrecked or not, she handled the baby like she knew what she was doing.

Hannah went meekly back to the couch, sat down beside her sister, arranged Daniel on her lap, then offered him the bottle. The crying finally stopped while Daniel went to town on dinner, and everyone seemed to relax a little in the blessed silence.

“How’s the virus transmitted?” Jo asked, still sentry at the window but listening in, getting them back on topic.

“Blood to blood contact,” Dean answered. “If you have a cut or a scrape, anything that breaks the skin, and their blood comes in contact with yours, you’re infected.”

“Explains my brother-in-law and the knife,” Cait grumbled under her breath.

“What sort of incubation time are we looking at?” Gerald asked.

“Three or four hours,” Dean replied. Meaning that if any of them had been infected by Rob, the husband-gone-wild-and-not-in-the-fun-spring-break-kind-of-way, they would have already found out about it by now. Small mercies and all that, he supposed.

“I’m sorry, hold up,” Nathan put up a hand, “demonic virus? Are we really having this conversation?”

“Hey, you got a better explanation for people you know turning into monsters?” Dean snapped. Only after it came out of his mouth did he consider the audience and spare a glance at Hannah. She looked like she hadn’t even heard, like she’d shut down and focused her world entirely on just sitting there watching Daniel guzzle from the bottle.

Dean flicked a thoughtful glance at Sam, wondering if that had been his brother’s intention in offering Daniel to Hannah in the first place. He wouldn’t put it past his too-empathetic-to-have-testicles little brother.

“This might sound crazy to you,” Cait said sharply to the cop, “but it’s the only explanation we have for what’s happened to this city. So until you’ve got something better, I’m going to believe them.”

Nathan frowned but said nothing in retaliation… though his eyes did drop to the bloodstain on the rug.

“So… how do you cure this?” Ellen asked.

Dean tensed.

“As far as we know,” Sam said grimly, “it has no cure.” 

“Then how’d you boys get out alive last time?”

Dean didn’t answer. He was thinking about the post-apocalyptic world of the future, overrun with people infected with the Croatoan virus, that only he had seen. And he was thinking of the fact that, as far as they knew, his brother was the only person on the planet immune to the virus.

“We don’t really have a good answer for that,” Sam confessed. “We were surrounded by these things, we thought we were all going to die, and then they all just… vanished. Everyone in town disappeared without a trace.”

“Huh,” Strafe huffed. “Well, that explains the word ‘Croatoan’ a bit.”

“How’s that?” Nathan asked.

“Google colonial unsolved mysteries sometime,” Strafe tossed back off-handedly.

“Hey, guys,” Jo chimed in from her spot by the window. Everyone (except Hannah) turned their attention toward her. Jo stepped toward them, expression severe, and for a split-second she looked scarily like Ellen. “We’re going to have to bug out of here… those fires are getting close.”

At first, no one responded. There was nothing appealing about going out into that world of Croatoan-infected maniacs. And Dean didn’t want to leave the house – it was where Castiel would know to look for them, and they couldn’t call him to tell him otherwise.

But, yeah, burning alive had been top on the list of ways Dean didn’t want to die since he was four.

“All right,” Ellen said wearily as she stood up. “Let’s get together what we can.” The hunters, silent and resigned, set to work getting whatever supplies they might need that were essential… they couldn’t weigh themselves down, not when hordes of infected would most likely be chasing them at some point. Hoping they wouldn’t end up running for their lives was overly optimistic.

Dean and Sam’s things were still in their duffles… all they’d have to do was pick them up and hoof it.

Cait touched her sister’s shoulder softly. “Hannah?”

“Hmmm.” Hannah kept her eyes on Daniel, who was just about finished with the bottle.

“We have to go, sweetie.”

“Go where?”

Cait frowned. “Away from here… can you put on some tennis shoes?” 

Hannah finally looked up at her sister, stared at her uncomprehending a moment, then she looked down at Daniel again. “What about the baby?”

“Oh, he’s coming,” Dean assured.

Hannah looked up at Dean, watery doe eyes big and not entirely all there, then she put the empty bottle on the end table and stood with the boy in her arms. She walked up to Dean and seemed kind of reluctant to give the baby back. She gave Daniel to Dean, then she disappeared back upstairs.

They were gathering together in the living room, bags slung over their shoulders, ready to head out. The sky outside was tinged orange and gray from the encroaching fires. Dean held Daniel close, hating how Castiel wasn’t there to take him and keep the boy safe.

Suddenly Hannah was at his side, quiet as a mouse and holding something out to him. Dean glanced down at the odd thing of green fabric and straps. “What’s that?”

She shook it out, and Dean might not be an expert on baby gear, but he could see what the thing was for… it was a chest pack with shoulder straps for carrying a baby. He took it, speechless, and Hannah swallowed, “I was… I was putting off getting rid of Elsi’s newborn stuff… I thought maybe, maybe Rob and I would have another one someday…”

Another crying jag was imminent, and they didn’t have the time. So Dean quickly said, “Thank you.” Then, remembering how Sam had used Daniel to divert Hannah’s traumatized grief, he added, “Mind showing me how to use it?”

His ineptitude almost tugged a smile out of her, and she took Daniel from him, handed the baby to Sam, then made quick work of the contraption. Her hands worked like muscle memory, the way Dean could field strip his favorite .45 hung-over and half-asleep, until Dean had the thing on like a backwards backpack. She reclaimed Daniel from Sam without asking, all maternal efficiency. She seemed to take a moment holding Daniel before she expertly slipped him into the cradle at Dean’s chest… and it was totally emasculating, but totally practical. Dean’s hands were free for weapons.

“If you all are done getting baby ready for his first outing,” Gerald snarled, “can we go before we’re all crispy critters?”

Dean shot Gerald a foul look, then resettled his duffle over his shoulder.

Ellen was at the front door, hand on the knob. “Ready?”

A chorus of guns cocking were her answer.

“Everyone try not to die,” Gerald tossed out as Ellen opened the door and the group began to file out of the house in the path of the blaze.

**********

They made it a block before they encountered their first infected human. A man came staggering out of an alley, and he might have been a drifter or the local fry-cook for all they knew… whoever he’d been, he was feral and filthy now. He saw the group making their way down the street and started running right at them. His hands were clutching fistfuls of glass, sharp shards of broken windowpane gripped so tight that blood ran in rivulets down his wrists and forearms.

Strafe shot him in the chest before he could get close enough to slash at them.

At the report of the gun, Daniel startled against Dean’s chest.

From the hidden corners and streets and homes of the neighborhood, the screeching of rabid men and women lifted above the distant din of a city in chaos. It was the sound of predators becoming suddenly aware of prey nearby.

“Cat’s out of the bag now,” Sam quipped drolly as he took a step back, pressing arm-to-arm with Dean as they surveyed the area for attackers. Ellen and Jo were doing the same, butting up to fight together. Gerald and Strafe, accustomed to hunting alone, moved restlessly, untethered and at the ready. Cait looked like she wanted to do the same, but she kept her little sister at her back, always an elbow or heel touching the younger woman (who looked likewise uninterested in being out of arm’s length of her sibling). The police officer might have looked like one of them were it not for the fact he was in uniform, the way his weapon was out and expertly held in front of him.

“Officer Winters,” Sam turned to look at the cop, “you know the area… where can we go?”

Nathan took a moment to think. He looked at street signs, getting his bearings. Then he turned and regarded the fire that had run them out of Hannah’s house. He considered the wind direction, which was fanning the fire northward. Dean had to hand it to the guy – for a city snob, he had woodsman’s sense. But he also had to take into account the uniquely urban obstacles… like the huge pile-up of cars Dean could see at the far end of the street, stretching end to end like the Croats had been making a fence out of Fords.

Finally, Nathan pointed abstractly southwest. “About three and a half blocks that way, there’s a convenience store. It’s seen more than its share of robbers in the last few years.”

“And that’s good for us how?” Gerald asked curtly.

“It has food, water, a reinforced door, and bars on all the windows,” Nathan bit back.

“Sounds cozy,” Ellen quipped, “hell, I’m in. Lead the way, Officer.”

Nathan scanned his eyes over the group looking for resistance, and when there was none, he moved to the front of the group and headed out. The hunters and Hannah followed in his wake.

But in a city foreshadowing the year 2014, they couldn’t make it three blocks without having to fight for their lives. Gerald’s gunshot might as well have been a signal flare, drawing every wild human being with the Croatoan virus within earshot.

Jo spotted the second one. “We got company!” she warned as she unloaded a shot into a bedraggled woman’s torso. She went down with a savage scream… only to be replaced by a large man with bloodshot eyes, cuts all over his arms, and a stained knife in his hand. He led the charge, and others followed.

“Fuck,” Dean brought his weapon about and started firing. The other hunters joined the assault.

They fired bullet after bullet into the horde, mowing down humans they would have been fighting to protect only days ago. The street became strewn with corpses and the dying. Without really even intending to do it, the hunters had formed a circle, Sam, Dean, Ellen, Jo, Strafe, Gerald, Cait, and Nathan locked together with unseen shackles, facing outward, with the lone civilian, Hannah, in the center. As they beat back the crowds, they crept, side-shuffled, and stole in the direction of the elusive convenience store where the infected could be locked out.

At some point amid all the gunfire, between Dean scanning the street for Croats (he was the only one who knew to call them that) and keeping one eye on Sam beside him, Daniel had started crying. Piercing, panicked wailing that drowned out the blood-thirsty screams of the attackers. A small hand fisted in Dean’s sleeve and he glanced back quickly, just enough to see that it was Hannah who’d grabbed on to him, and from her expression she hadn’t planned it or necessarily knew she was doing it… she’d reacted on instinct, heard a baby in distress and reached out.

Then he didn’t have time to spare any attention to her, because another wave of Croats had come around the street corner and charged. They were armed with blades, gardening tools, broken dishes, anything that could slice open skin, but none of them had firearms like the infected in Rivergrove had… Dean dreaded to think how these had run through any ammunition they might have had that would make them abandon pistols and rifles. 

Or maybe they were much more interested in converting than killing. That thought didn’t reassure Dean any as he took aim at the new surge of Croats.

Guns went off in quick succession. Croats fell. More came. Those fell, too, but closer to the hunters that their late comrades. More followed them, pressing even closer than those before.

Then Sam had to stop and reload. After him, Jo. Cait was cursing a jammed slide on her semi-automatic.

The small break in their defense let a Croat push past his falling comrades and lash out within actual striking distance of the ring of fighters. A hand clutching the rotted end of a plank of wood with a rusty nail sticking out slashed in Dean’s direction. It arched directly toward the baby strapped to the front of his chest.

“Whoa!” Dean jumped back, wrapping his arms around Daniel and turning to shield his son. While Dean surged back, colliding into Hannah, Sam was rushing forward to fill the hole and protect his family. He landed a clock-cleaning punch to the Croat’s jaw… the momentum of a large and powerful guy like Sam was enough to drop the attacker to the ground.

A normal human would be unconscious from such a vicious blow, but the Croat was scrambling to get his feet under him.

Strafe plugged him, a shot right between the eyes, that put an end to that particular problem.

Dean straightened and for a moment found himself inside the circle with Hannah while his brother and the others closed ranks. Dean looked down at Hannah, only then realizing that she’d clutched on to his sleeve again. She was staring up at him with wide eyes while her other hand fisted in the back of her sister’s shirt.

That’s when Dean had an epiphany. He had to get back into the fight, but it put Daniel at too much risk, too easy a target plastered to Dean’s front. The only way the boy could have been in any more danger would be if Dean actually held the kid out to the Croats.

There was only one non-com among them, one person shielded behind a wall of hunters.

Without giving himself time to second-guess, Dean shrugged out of the carrier’s shoulder straps and shoved pouch, straps, and baby all into Hannah’s hands. She let go of both hunters to accept the child on reflex. When she looked up into Dean’s face, he said simply, “Take care of him.”

Something flashed in Hannah’s eyes, then, something _fierce_ , and she slipped on the contraption with ease. Then she wrapped her arms around Daniel, holding him close.

Dean readied his weapon and shouldered his way back into the frontlines.

“How much farther?!” Strafe bellowed at Nathan over the screaming and shooting.

“A block at least!” Nathan answered, “But we’re going to have to cut through that alley up there to bypass that roadblock!” He gestured at the bumper-to-bumper line of wrecked cars in their way.

The alley Nathan was talking about was a narrow path between two brick buildings, a bottleneck if they weren’t careful. Dean glanced down it once they were at the mouth and got Han Solo-type bad feelings about it. There were upturned dumpsters, bodies sprawled on the smelly concrete, but most troubling of all, back doors to the alley from both buildings. It reeked of danger. Not that they had much choice. Croats were rushing toward them, overwhelming in number.

Nathan went into the alley first, leading the way. Jo and Ellen went next. Dean reached over and grabbed Hannah roughly by the shoulder of her shirt. Cait snarled something at him, then pressed in closer after her sister as Dean hauled Hannah into the alleyway after him. Sam and Gerald slipped into the alley after that. Strafe backed up as he brought up the rear, firing on the Croats trying to crowd in after them.

Ahead, Nathan and the Harvelles were looking into open doors before moving past them. Sam and Gerald had lagged behind to help Strafe with the press of infected biting at their heels.

It was going pretty well until Strafe ran out of ammo. He reached down to snatch up his spare clip from his belt, but his cast interfered. It cost him only a few seconds, but they proved to be fatal. A Croat lashed out and snagged a hold of his arm. With a yelp, Strafe was yanked into the waiting hands of the horde. Sam and Gerald made an abortive grab for him, but almost the moment the infected had him they were cutting him, clawing his skin open, smearing his blood with their own gaping wounds.

“He’s done!” Sam barked and pulled Gerald back, who was still trying to rescue their fellow hunter.

Dean threw a glance over his shoulder.

“Dean!” Cait yelled in warning.

Dean was lifted off his feet and thrown into the brick wall by a Croat who’d rushed from the darkness of one of the ominous open doorways. He lost his grip on Hannah and his gun at the same time, his duffle bag flying from his shoulder and landing several feet away.

“Shit!” Cait snarled. 

Hannah screamed.

Dean grabbed at the wrists of the Croat who had his hands wrapped around Dean’s throat. Dean started kicking frantically to keep the Croat at a distance, because with his hands occupied with keeping Dean trapped against the wall, the Croat didn’t have any weapon to use to break the hunter’s skin except his teeth. And apparently Croats weren’t opposed to improvising.

Dean fought off the jaw-snapping advance, all the while his mind racing, worrying ‘where’s Daniel? where’s Sam? where’s Cas?’ Dean’s own personal mantra.

Gunfire echoed painfully loud in the close space. Cait was yelling, cursing. Sam was calling out to his brother. Dean was just trying to _not_ get bitten.

It felt like twenty minutes, but was probably closer to twenty seconds, when the Croat doing his best to strangle the life out of Dean suddenly had a revolver pressed to his temple. Dean barely had time to close his eyes before Ellen blew the Croat’s brains out. The hands locked around Dean’s throat fell away as the body dropped, and Dean coughed and sucked in air.

Then he looked up and felt sick.

Hannah and Cait were nowhere in sight. Sam just reached him, grabbing Dean’s arm and asking if he was okay.

“Daniel,” Dean croaked, looking wildly around.

All the while, the horde was pressing them onward, forcing them up the alley. Gerald was shooting one crazed human after another, but they just kept swarming forward.

Dean grabbed hold of Sam’s arm in panic and looked desperately for any indication of where his son had disappeared to. There were alley-access doors on either side, but some were already inaccessible due to the advancing Croats.

“Move it, guys!” Gerald bellowed as he was practically pushed in between the brothers in his fighting retreat.

“ _Daniel_ ,” Dean growled, trying to throw himself at the infected. He’d climb over them if he had to.

It was Sam’s vice-like grip on his arm that held him back. “Dean, don’t!”

“We can’t leave him, Sammy!”

“You can’t stay here,” Gerald snarled, shoving at both brothers. A Croat reached frantically toward Sam, catching the back of his shirt and pulling. Sam might have tipped over into their waiting hands if he hadn’t already been latched to Dean, who hauled him forward and broke the Croat’s grip. Dean couldn’t get to his gun – not the one he’d dropped, anyway – but he reached down and snagged the shoulder strap of his duffle and pulled it out from under the feet of the Croats. He fished out another gun and made to plow his way into the mass of infected humans to find his son.

Sam yanked him back again. “Dean, we have to go!”

“I have to find Daniel, damnit!” Dean snapped.

“We will! We’ll find him! But if we stay here, we’re dead.” Then Sam was physically forcing him down the alley. Dean fought, but Sam was stronger.

“Sam, we gotta get Daniel!” Dean protested.

“We will, Dean… we’ll get these people clear and we’ll find a way to get him back.”

If Dean had to, he felt like he could tear down all of Detroit with his bare hands to find his son.

**********

The building Hannah had been all but knocked into was some kind of workshop. Even in the scant light coming through the front windows, she could make out work benches, machines, and half-finished projects lying neglected and abandoned, never to be finished.

They could hear the monsters outside, swarming through the alley. Several of the infected had jumped out at their group from a door opening on to the alley, slavering mad and screaming bloody murder, just like Rob had. One of the things had pinned Dean to the wall. Another had lunged for Hannah. Hannah still wasn’t really sure how she’d ended up in here, but she suspected her big sister had a lot to do with it. Cait was always looking out for her.

Cait had probably pushed Hannah into the building. And Cait was the one who slammed the alleyway door closed and threw the deadbolt to lock out the monsters.

Then it was just the two of them, breathing hard in the frightening silence.

The baby strapped to her chest made a pitiful noise.

Three of them.

“Are you okay, Hannah?” Cait moved toward her, shoving her gun into her pants to reach out and examine her little sister.

Hannah nodded shakily. “I… I think so… are you…” Hannah saw a glint of something wet and shiny in the slanted light. A reflection on Cait’s arm. Blood.

“Cait?” Hannah squeaked.

Cait looked down at the wound and closed her free hand over it far too calmly… too resigned.

“You… you’re okay, right?” Hannah’s voice trembled.

“Yeah… yeah, I’m good, sis.”

The baby Daniel whimpered, and Hannah folded her arms over his little body, hugging him close. He wasn’t her sweet Elsi, but he needed her. Hannah wasn’t good for much in this disaster, but she could care for Daniel. She knew how to watch over a newborn. 

That didn’t mean she wasn’t terrified out of her mind, though. She started to shake. She thought Caitlyn would hug her, comfort her like she had since Hannah was small, but Cait didn’t. She kept her distance.

Hannah felt herself starting to cry.

“Come on, Hannah… that boy needs you to be strong.”

“I… I can’t do this… without… I need you, Cait.”

Cait looked around the dark workspace a moment, thinking. Then she pulled out her gun and held it out to Hannah.

Hannah’s eyes shot up to her sister. “What… why are you giving that to _me_?”

“Just take it, sis… I want you to hide here while I go for help.”

“No… no! Don’t leave me here. I’ll come with you! Please!”

Cait smiled painfully. “You can’t come with me, Hannah. Stay here… I’ll go after the others, tell them where you are. They’ll come back for you.”

“No, Cait, please!” Hannah lurched forward, making a grab for her sister’s arm.

“Don’t!” Cait leapt back, out of reach.

Hannah fell to her knees, sobbing. With nothing else to do with her hands, bereft by a sister that wouldn’t hold her, Hannah clung to Daniel and rocked, weeping.

Cait inched closer, knelt, and laid the gun on the floor next to Hannah. “Be brave, sis.”

“I’m not! I’m not you, Cait.”

“I’ll send help for you,” Cait promised. She darted forward, too swiftly for Hannah to try and get a hold of her, and kissed Hannah on the forehead. Then she was pulling away and stepping back.

“Cait, please…” Hannah wept.

“I love you, sis.”

And then Cait was gone.

Hannah sat on the floor, crying, rocking the baby in her arms more out of ingrained behavior than anything else. Elsi loved being rocked so much.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, or how long she might have, if a sharp banging on the back door didn’t startle her out of her bout. Her head jerked up and she looked toward the door, eyes wide in the darkness. Sniffling wetly, Hannah reached down and picked up the gun. Keeping it aimed at the locked door, she staggered to her feet, free hand holding the baby close, and crept backward.

She found a spot under one of the heavy wooden desks to hide. She crawled into the space, tucked her legs up to completely fit inside, and sat heaving for breath, gun awkward in her right hand and left hand familiar on the baby.

Daniel was breathing tightly, like her, like he knew they were in trouble. He wasn’t crying, like he knew they were hiding.

“You’re going to be okay,” Hannah whispered thinly. “You will… Cait’ll come back and we’ll get out of here, and… and your dad will be there, and he’ll hold you, and hug you, and kiss you, and he’d never… he’d never hurt you…” she started to hiccup, “because fathers love their babies. They wouldn’t hurt them… ever.”

Daniel’s left arm stretched up and he closed a tiny fist in the material of Hannah’s shirt.

Hannah put the gun on the floor next to her and devoted both hands to cradling the baby.

The darkness seemed to go on forever. The silence of the workshop an eerie contrast to the sounds of violence beyond the building’s walls. Hannah pushed it to the edges of her awareness, pretended it wasn’t actually happening. It was a violent movie on TV in the other room. It wasn’t real. But Daniel was… his reassuring warmth and sweet sebaceous skin and soft, soft hair. He wasn’t as fair or delicate as Elsi, not as beautiful as her wonderful daughter, but still so precious.

Hannah snuggled down in the cramped space and whisper-sang, “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word… papa’s gonna buy you a mocking bird… and if that mocking bird don’t sing, papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring…”

She was on the looking glass when she realized the sounds of the vicious hordes outside had stopped.

For a second, she didn’t even dare to breathe, holding Daniel close to her pounding heart and straining to hear anything. The dead silence was almost more terrifying than the screaming and pounding.

Hannah peeked out around the corner of the desk. “Cait?” she ventured cautiously. “Cait?”

“Fraid not, sugar,” a strange woman’s voice intoned from the other side of the desk.

Hannah jumped and craned out of her hiding hole enough to look over the desk at the source of the voice. A woman with olive skin and dark hair was standing there, looking down with a wry smirk on her face. 

Wry, but she didn’t look manic or crazed.

“Who are you?”

“Oh, who I am doesn’t matter. I’m only interested in two names, and neither one of them is mine. I’d like to ask you if you’ve seen some friends of mine.”

Hannah noticed for the first time how cramped her muscles had gotten being crammed in her hiding space. She felt safer coming out now that she wasn’t alone. “Friends? Are they hunters?”

“Why, yes, as a matter of fact.”

Hannah wormed out of her hiding place and stood to face the woman.

The stranger’s eyes landed on Daniel and went wide. Then they turned completely black.

Hannah flinched back.

“Well, well, what have you got there?” the stranger said in a low voice. She moved around the table slowly.

Hannah ducked and picked up the gun. “Stay back!”

“Oh, honey, please… you can’t hurt me with that thing. But hand over the angel baby, and maybe I won’t snap your neck.”

Hannah closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger, over and over again. The gun recoiled in her hand, seemingly a bucking live creature in her grasp, and half the shoots were going wild, but she kept firing. When the gun started making a dry click sound every time she pulled the trigger, Hannah took a peek.

And her jaw dropped at the woman, totally unruffled, standing there with a hole burrowed through her neck. Light peeked through from the other side, but the woman wasn’t bleeding or dying. Instead, she looked smug.

“Ouch… now that’s going to hurt… you, I mean.”

Then, suddenly, the black-eyed woman was right in Hannah’s face, hands coming up. Reaching for the baby.

“No! Don’t touch him! Don’t!” Hannah dropped the gun and started kicking and scratching the stranger in a frenzy. “Don’t hurt her! Don’t, Rob, _don’t_!”

Hannah felt a hand slip past her strikes and settle almost casually on her neck. It tightened sharply.

It tingle-hurt, sang sourly in her body, then it all stopped.

**********

Lucifer felt the presence of a brother, the warm grace of another angel, as one of his demons approached him with a screaming child in her arms.

“I didn’t find the Winchesters, my Lord, but I found this. I thought it might please you.” She gave him the baby and stepped back submissively, head bowed.

The baby’s cries stopped the second he left demon hands.

Lucifer stared down at the child, taken quite by surprise. He immediately recognized Castiel’s grace in the infant. But he knew Dean Winchester’s soul when he saw a piece of it, too.

Unbidden, Lucifer began to grin.

“So full of surprises, Castiel,” he muttered half in wonder. He brought the child to his chest, held it close, and felt it drawing off his grace. It fussed a little, like Lucifer’s grace was sour milk, but it continued to soak in the archangel’s grace all the same.

“I don’t know what they christened you, little one,” Lucifer cooed to the child, “but it should have been Chip… because you’ll be the perfect one for bargaining for Sam’s consent.” 

He lifted his eyes from the baby and addressed his minion, “Show me where you found this baby… the Winchesters won’t be far.”

**********

They never made it to the Fort Knox convenience store. They only made it a block, at best, before they were overrun and forced to flee. The group was pressed to take refuge in an apartment building foyer, packed between the outer doors and inner and hoping it was safe enough because the inner doors were boarded closed and the front had iron grates over the windows. Ellen shoved her rifle through the door handles to stop the Croats from pushing it open after them.

Dean was clamoring to get out as soon as they were shut inside. Sam pulled him off the door handles and pushed him toward the wall. “Dean! Stop it!”

“Daniel’s out there, Sam!” Dean yelled, fighting at his brother’s hold. Sam had been practically dragging Dean along since the alleyway, and Dean was mad about every inch put between him and his son.

“And we’re _not_ leaving him out there,” Sam insisted. “Not a chance in hell we’re leaving him… but if we’re going to get him back, we have to be smart about it. Getting ourselves ripped to pieces won’t help Daniel.” Sam looked sympathetically at him a second, then said more softly, “We don’t even know if they _can_ hurt him. He’s mostly angel, remember? He could be indestructible as far as those things go.”

It was a theory Dean would just as soon never actually test out. He stopped struggling against his brother, though. “Those fuckers lay a finger on him, and I’ll rip their lungs out.” Whether it harmed Daniel or not, if they touched him, they were dead.

“And I’ll hold ‘em down while you do,” Sam swore.

“Touching as this is,” Gerald groused as he put his weight behind holding one door shut (Nathan putting his shoulder into the other), “anyone actually have any bright ideas about how to not end up Croatoan zombies?”

Admittedly, their odds weren’t looking good. A sea of Croats were spilling down from the steps of the apartment building and filling the street. It looked like a deranged flash mob or fanatic Twilight fans trying to touch the greasy hair of that scrawny, emo vampire-wannabe douchebag.

The combined weight of the crowd pushing at the front doors made the hinges creak ominously. Ellen’s rifle in the handles rattled and threatened to slip, while Gerald and Nathan were shaking with the effort to hold the doors in place.

“Whatever we come up with, we better come up with it fast,” Jo pointed out unnecessarily.

“Sam,” Ellen grabbed the stronger brother’s arm, “help me get these off.” She gestured at the boards keeping them out of the rest of the apartment building. Which for all they knew could be holding _in_ more Croats, but at this point they might as well take the chance.

Dean shouldered through the tight space in the foyer to help, and the Harvelles and Winchesters went to yanking and tugging and prying and pulling at the boards nailed over the entrance.

“Hurry up, you guys,” Nathan grit out between clenched teeth.

“We’ve almost got it,” Sam replied as he pulled back on a corner of the board, throwing his weight onto his heels in hard jerks like a dog playing tug-of-war with a toy.

One of the front doors let out a splintering crack. The glass behind the iron bars broke and ended up on the ground, crunching under their shoes.

“Shit,” Jo turned away from helping pry off the boards, leaving the job to stronger members of the group, and stuck her gun barrel through the broken glass and shot the nearest Croat in the face. Another was there to take its place, and Jo gave it the same warm welcome. Then another. And another.

Then the gunshots stopped. 

“I’m out!” Jo called.

“We’ve got it!” Sam said victoriously as he pulled off the last board and shoved it to the side. The doors into the apartment building swung open, the rooms beyond unknown but offering at least a better chance at survival than they had going for them in the other direction.

Just as Dean was wondering how the hell they were going to get Nathan and Gerald to safety without them holding the doors closed…

… everything stopped.

The teeming mass of Croats outside the building went silent. They stopped trying to climb over themselves to reach the hunters. They stood eerily still, like so many gruesome statues.

The silence was deafening, after all that they’d grown accustomed to cacophony.

Dazed, everyone in the cramped foyer turned and stared outward at the motionless crowd. Nathan and Gerald slowly let up on the doors and straightened, staring out at the inexplicable scene. 

“What in the holy god damn hell,” Gerald murmured.

“Dean?” Sam whispered without looking his brother’s way, too leery to take his eyes off the Croats staring back blankly at them through the doors’ bars.

“I have no clue, man,” Dean answered.

Suddenly the Croats were moving again. But not in a mad scramble to reach the hunters. They were leaving. And not in an orderly fashion. They were scattering, running like cockroaches when the kitchen light went on. In a matter of moments, the street in front of the apartment building was completely deserted.

The hunters looked at one another in turn.

“Okay… anything? Anyone? Because I’ve got a big zero here,” Dean grumbled. And it was taking everything in him not to bolt out of the building and go look for his son, the reason for the sudden quiet be damned. Daniel was out there like a siren’s call to Dean’s soul.

“I don’t know,” Ellen said in a hushed voice, “maybe…”

But she didn’t get to finish. Suddenly the street was no longer empty. Appearing out of nowhere to the accompaniment of unseen-but-heard wing beats, a single man with a bundle in his arms stood in the middle of the street. He looked up at the building… looked up, and somehow he seemed to look down at it, too.

“I know you’re in there, Sammy! Come on out so we can have a chat,” the figure spoke sinister and smooth at once, his presence turning the very air around him bitter and singed.

“Lucifer,” Sam breathed.

Several of the others sucked in a breath.

The bundle in the Devil’s arms moved.

“He’s got Daniel,” Dean growled incredulously, furiously, and he shoved aside Ellen’s rifle and pushed through the doors before anyone could stop him. He marched down the concrete steps, full of a fury so strong he was sure he could rip the kidnapping bastard’s head off, archangel or no archangel.

He heard Sam hurrying after him, but only Sam. The others stayed in the building… perhaps Sam had managed to warn them not to throw spitballs at the giant. Or maybe they had some smidgen of common sense not to tangle with Satan… sense the Winchesters obviously lacked.

Dean came to a stop a few feet in front of Lucifer. His hands fisted at his sides so he wouldn’t actually throw himself like a crazed Croat at the dickwad holding his boy. “Give me my son, you asshole.”

“Who, this little guy?” Lucifer tickled Daniel’s cheek. “But we’re just getting to know each other.”

“Give him back, Lucifer,” Sam said when he came up next to Dean.

At that, Lucifer’s head came up and he looked seriously at Sam. “Well, I tell you what, Sam… I think we could make an arrangement.”

Dean stiffened. Rage and indignation were joined by an overpowering dose of panic. He couldn’t choose between his son and his brother. He couldn’t pick between Daniel and Sam, he just couldn’t. 

But Sam probably wouldn’t leave that decision up to him, and that was terrifying. After everything, was this how it ended, with Sam saying yes in Detroit?

“What did you do to Cas?” Dean growled, hoping to stall for time. To gain them what, he didn’t know, but he couldn’t see it end. Not after all they’d done and how hard they’d fought.

“Ah, yes… Castiel.” Lucifer shrugged easily. “Let’s just say he’s out of the way.” Then he locked a wicked, impish look on Dean. “I must say, Dean, I’ve got to applaud you for turning Heaven’s plan for you so delightfully on its head. Here they were trying to get an angel all up in you, and instead you go and get all up in an angel.” His eyes dropped to the baby and he chuckled. “Truly, a demented joke to do Gabriel proud.”

“Shut your pie-hole, you giant dick, my son’s not a _joke_.”

“Oh, he really is. A cosmic one. Not that I can’t appreciate something that’s sure to get Heaven’s panties in a royal twist.” Like an obscenity, Lucifer tucked Daniel close to him. Dean’s nostrils flared when he saw Daniel snuggle close, the way he did to Castiel. He knew Daniel was leeching grace from the archangel. The thought of that monster’s grace in his son was revolting.

“So, Sam,” Lucifer drawled, petting Daniel’s back like a super-villain in a James Bond movie stroking his cat, “I imagine you can guess the deal I’m going to propose.” Lucifer’s fingers curled slightly, like claws against Daniel’s back, and Dean’s heart jumped into his throat. Maybe the Croats couldn’t have hurt Daniel, but Lucifer could certainly burn him out of his body. Dean had a gut-wrenching mental image of Daniel lifeless on the ground, the scorched pattern of tiny little wings spread out beneath him.

“First,” Sam said quickly. Dean shot a glance at him, but Sam wouldn’t look at his brother. “First… a show of faith.”

Lucifer frowned and gave a theatric sigh. “Where’s the trust? I’m hurt, Sam.” After a disappointed shake of his head, Lucifer asked, “Exactly what kind of ‘show of faith’ are you suggesting?”

Sam gestured over his shoulder at the apartment building. “Our friends… send them somewhere safe.”

And Dean could understand that, he could. If this all went to hell and Sam said yes, their friends (standing quite literally at ground zero) were dead meat. Not that Lucifer in his brand-spanking-new Sam-suit couldn’t just go right after them, wherever he sent them, but surely Lucifer would have other priorities once he finally got his prized ride than chasing down a handful of hunters.

“I can do that.” Lucifer freed a hand to whisk the hunters in question elsewhere.

“In this universe, in the present! Not a long time ago in some galaxy far, far away,” Sam hurried to clarify.

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Spoilsport.” Then he flicked his wrist in what looked more like a dismissive wave. Dean turned to look over his shoulder and found the apartment building foyer empty.

They’d done that much, at least.

“And now… your turn, Sam,” Lucifer said pointedly.

“What about Daniel?” Sam countered.

“Is that his name?” Lucifer asked absently. He glanced down at the baby. “When I’m with you, I’ll give him to Dean.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Scout’s honor. When you and I are one and the same, I promise I’ll give the boy to Dean,” Lucifer smiled sweetly, “and angels always keep their promises.” At Sam’s wary look, Lucifer added, “You’ll have to have a little faith, Sammy… because really, what choice do you have?”

Sadly, none.

When Sam still hesitated, Lucifer narrowed his eyes, and the barest hint of his ire was almost buckling. “I’m done playing games with you boys. It’s crunch time and I’m out of patience. So you give me consent to take my proper vessel, or this child dies. Simple as that. Could you ever forgive yourself for letting that happen, Sam? Could your brother ever forgive you?”

Dean wanted to do something, anything, stop this, change fate and buck destiny and fucking _win_ against the universe. But at that moment, watching the Devil cradle his son and knowing his brother was contemplating becoming an archangel meatsuit, Dean didn’t see a way out.

“What’ll it be, Sam?” Lucifer demanded.

Sam turned to look at Dean. He was going to do it. Dean could see it in his brother’s eyes. Apology and love and regret and their entire fucking childhoods in Sam’s eyes. The self-sacrificing bitch. He was going to give himself up for Dean’s son. 

And Dean couldn’t make himself stop Sam, because he couldn’t lose Sam, but he _couldn’t lose Daniel either_. God definitely didn’t give a shit, because what kind of god would make Dean choose?

Or _maybe_ … maybe he didn’t have to pick.

Dean closed his eyes and thought as loud as he could

‘ _Michael_ …’

**********

The holy fire was a flickering torment, dancing around Castiel, flaunting its power to hold him. The angel shifted anxiously in his trap. He paced what little he could. He tested his cage because he couldn’t stand still and _not_ try. Every time he edged too close to the fire, it jumped up and licked at his wingtips, the burning of holiness shooting up into the core of Castiel’s grace and punishing him with white-hot, blinding pain. Castiel jerked back and fidgeted, tension quivering through his body. 

Even when he didn’t touch it, the fire affected him. The press of it from all sides was smothering, bogging down the strength of his grace.

The ferris wheel of fire reflected unevenly on the faces of the demons left to watch him. They prowled the perimeter, like demonic wolves, all black eyes and flashing teeth.

Castiel had pulled his cellular phone out of his pocket once and attempted to call Dean, to warn him, but the device would not work.

He was afraid for Dean and Sam. He was afraid for Daniel.

But he was helpless to save them.

Castiel was swaying anxiously in the small space allotted him when a presence, for a moment, filled up the dark room. It gusted in like a storm front, shoving at the press of demonic power in the night club. Castiel flinched instinctively. The demons shrieked and retreated from the new arrival.

Castiel straightened in surprise when he recognized it as an angel… an angel he knew.

“Gabriel.”

Gabriel stood on the other side of the pattern of holy fire and returned Castiel’s look. For once, he didn’t look flippant or cheeky. He looked pissed. He looked like he was on a mission.

The demons were recovering and rallying to attack.

Gabriel lifted a hand and snapped his fingers. The half-dozen demons in the spacious room seized, flared out, and fell lifeless to the floor.

In the resulting dead quiet and stillness, broken only by the crackle and flicker of flames, Gabriel and Castiel stared at one another across the barrier of fire. Castiel felt hope and fear mounting together in him. He didn’t know why Gabriel had come, or what he meant to do now that he had. 

For a second, it looked like Gabriel didn’t really know the answers, either.

Gabriel’s eyes shifted down to the perpetually-burning concrete. He made a small table-clearing gesture with his hand. With a great groan and heave, huge chunks of the floor ripped up and went airborne, crashing against the far wall.

With it went the holy oil. And with that, the fire.

Just like that, Castiel was free.

He flung out his wings in readiness to fly. He hesitated only a second to meet his brother’s eyes, wondering. Questioning.

But Dean and Sam and Daniel needed him. Anything else could wait.

Castiel flew.

**********

When the familiar sound of angel wings filled the air, Dean thought it was Michael. He hadn’t said yes _yet_ , but he had every intention to. Maybe the intent was what mattered to the angel more than the actual word. He realized he was not afraid. This was the last chance he had to save his family. If that’s how Dean finally went out, he could be okay with that.

“Cas?”

Sam’s voice jolted Dean out of his fatalistic reflections and his eyes snapped open.

Castiel was there, standing in the street to the left of the Winchesters, Lucifer to the right.

“Cas?” Dean parroted his brother. Where had he been? How did he know to find them here?

Castiel’s eyes rested ever-so-briefly on Dean, checking on him, then his gaze shifted to Lucifer. 

Lucifer… holding Daniel.

Dean sucked in a breath when something colossal and unseen and _dangerous_ rose up in Castiel. The angel’s eyes burned like blue fire. He dipped his chin menacingly, a wrathful stare locked on Lucifer. The world itself around Castiel seemed to give and make way for the newborn power swelling to biblical proportions inside him. The angel was more than the universe could withstand… or hold back.

One second Castiel was a building supernova, the next he was flying at Lucifer.

Lucifer made a noise, a protest, a grunt of surprise, a battle cry… Dean didn’t even know. It was cut off almost the moment it was begun as Castiel and the Devil clashed.

It was like two planets colliding. The ground shook and knocked the Winchester brothers to the ground. The sky belched dark, angry clouds. The sounds of angels locked in mortal combat erupted in a painful cascade that had Dean and Sam clutching at their ears. Every window in Michigan must be breaking from the tidal wave of sound. Dean watched Sam curl up on the ground, trying to keep the agonizing the wall of sound out, then he glanced toward the combatants.

They were Lucifer and Castiel as Dean knew them for only a moment. As he watched two human shapes, Jimmy and Nick, grab at each other, a light began to build. Like the sun was rising right the fuck behind them – not on the horizon behind them, but two feet behind the twisting shapes. Dean squinted and tried to see who was winning, who had Daniel, but their movements were too fast to follow. He got hints of moments in the battle, a fist here, a war-face there, the silver of a flashing blade now and then, but nothing telling.

The light grew brighter and brighter… so glaring that Dean couldn’t make out their outlines anymore; edges were swallowed in a burning knot of white.

The light began to hurt.

Dean didn’t want to take his eyes off Castiel and Lucifer, but his eyes felt like they were going to burst into flames just from seeing the angels’ light.

The split-second before Dean slammed his eyes shut, he swore he saw wings flashing in the light. Two pairs. One brown, one massive and black.

Then Dean had to clench his eyes shut and just try not to fly apart. He felt like he was in the epicenter of the world ending.

It might have been a minute or a millennium; time itself seemed to have fled from the two angels locked in battle. Dean felt like he was teetering on the surface of the sun, two suns, two suns slamming together and taking out solar systems in the process.

A boom that had to be the Earth cracking in half rattled Dean’s bones and made the ground jump and lurch under him. Light flared beyond his eyelids, light so intense that Dean thought maybe he’d been blinded anyway.

Then it all stopped.

For a second, all Dean could do was lie there panting, his heart racing. He wasn’t sure he wasn’t dead. That they all weren’t dead, that Castiel and Lucifer hadn’t destroyed the world.

It was a muffled sound reaching Dean’s dumbfounded brain that told him no, the world wasn’t gone.

That sound was Daniel crying.

Shakily, Dean pried open his eyes. At first all he saw was a splotchy after-image swimming in front of him, like he’d been staring into a lamp from two inches away for a solid hour. When his vision finally cleared, he saw Sam on the ground directly in front of him doing the same. 

Then Dean lowered the hands he had clamped over his ears. The crying became sharper, much more real and near, even over the ringing in Dean’s ears from the auditory onslaught of warring angels.

The baby’s cries had Dean uncurling reflexively, scrabbling at asphalt for purchase on a world that had seemed dead-set on tossing them all off a second ago. Dean got unsteadily to his hands and knees and looked toward the sound of crying.

Two motionless bodies lay tangled in the street. Daniel was beside them, wailing mightily.

“Cas?” Dean croaked and stumbled to his feet. Sam was a beat behind him, staggering toward the bodies alongside his brother. Great cracks in the road zigzagged out from the unmoving shapes, like the angels were two meteorites that had slammed into the earth.

When the Winchesters were closer, Dean saw that Lucifer was on his back, head lolled to the side and eyes closed. One arm was flung out, at its terminus Daniel. The Devil’s fingers were hooked into Daniel’s clothes as the baby screamed and kicked. His other hand was twisted and caught in the material of Castiel’s trench coat. Collapsed on top of Lucifer was Castiel, just as deathly still. He was draped over Lucifer, chest to chest with the archangel, his head turned and eyes shut while his hands lay limply near Lucifer’s throat. Two identical angel blades lay near the angels… identical but for the fact that one had a shimmering residue, like liquid light, on the tip.

Burned into the pavement beneath the pair of fighters was a sooty impression of wings.

There was only one set, but whose?

Dean dropped to his knees next to the two angels while Sam crouched down beside Daniel.

“Cas?” Dean tried again.

Nothing. 

He bit his lip and looked back at his brother. “Is Daniel okay?”

Sam was dancing his fingers over the boy’s body gently, feeling for injury. At length, he sighed and looked up. “I think he’s okay.” As if to prove it to himself, Sam batted away Lucifer’s claw-like fingers and picked Daniel up. The baby flailed his arms insistently, and Sam brought the child to his chest. It wasn’t an angel’s embrace, but it was comforting enough, and it was family, for Daniel’s cries eased off.

Dean sighed, relieved for that much, at least. Then he turned back to Castiel. Neither angel had moved so much as a muscle. Neither one was even breathing, but it wasn’t as if angels needed to. Both their clothes were in tatters, torn and burned beyond saving. Like they’d both blasted beyond the limits of their vessels in the fight, incinerating and ripping as they went.

“Cas?” Dean reached down, hooked a hand on Castiel’s shoulder, and gently pulled him away from the Devil. Castiel rolled onto his back limply. Dean leaned in closer, watching for any sign of life. There was nothing… but did that _mean_ anything?

“Bring Daniel over here,” Dean bade his brother.

When Sam was crouching next to them, Dean took Daniel from Sam’s arms and very gently laid the baby on Castiel’s chest. 

Daniel stopped crying completely.

And, ever so faintly, Castiel’s eyelids twitched.

Dean nearly buckled. As it was, he had to put out a bracing hand to keep the pavement from rushing up to meet him. “He’s… he’s alive, Sammy.”

“Thank God,” Sam breathed.

Dean wouldn’t go that far, but he’d admit it was a fucking miracle that the angel had fought the Devil and _survived_.

Not really sure how he got there, Dean found himself lying on the ground alongside the angel – maybe he’d collapsed after all, though he didn’t remember it – pressed to Castiel’s side with his head on the angel’s chest. Dean’s forehead rested against Daniel’s. He laid a hand over his son’s back, feeling him breathe and loving every fucking second of it. Sam’s hand was gripping his shoulder in a hold that was sure to leave bruises, but Dean didn’t give a shit.

He thought he could have stayed there forever, middle of the broken street be damned, but in the next moment they were not alone.

Where there had been only empty road seconds ago suddenly stood a man. Dean jerked up into a sitting position and eyed the stranger. He didn’t recognize his face, but he recognized his presence from a dream.

“Michael.”

Sam stiffened.

Michael, for once, wasn’t paying any attention whatsoever to Dean Winchester. He was gaping down at his brothers, one dead at the hands of the other. He looked stunned. Struck completely speechless. His eyes tracked the pattern of wings burned into the street, moved in unmasked wonder to Castiel, then fell in amazement to the baby on the angel’s chest.

The attention of an archangel on his family was making Dean nervous. He got to his feet, tried to look badass, and stepped over Castiel to stand between them and Michael.

That, finally, got Michael to look at Dean. Much as he hated to make the comparison, the expression on his face reminded Dean of John. The look the Winchester patriarch would get on the rare occasions when he ended up being wrong about something. Like a world of absolutes and certainties all of a sudden had defied all reason.

The scrape of shoes on asphalt told Dean that Sam had risen, too, but he didn’t take his eyes off Michael to check.

The stand-off may have gone on indefinitely if the flutter-flap of wings hadn’t caught Dean’s attention and made him look to the right, toward the newcomer.

Gabriel took in the scene only a second before he lifted a hand and snapped his fingers.

**********

“We have no idea where we are,” Sam said, seemingly to himself. 

Dean cocked his head and glanced over his shoulder, enough to see Sam wandering around the tiny living room with his phone pressed to his ear. Mystery solved, he turned back to watching his son and Cas on the bed, keeping half an ear on the conversation while the other listened in helpless frustration as Daniel hiccupped and cried against Castiel’s chest.

“Wherever this is,” Sam continued, “there’s nothing outside but wheat fields as far as the eye can see. Not even roads, so we can’t even look for street names. But it seems safe enough… for now.” Sam paced in front of the single small bedroom. “I don’t know… Gabriel – yes, as in _the archangel_ – just showed up and zapped us _here_ , wherever here is.” A pause while the other person spoke. Then Sam said in a careful tone of voice, “Not exactly, he’s… when Gabriel brought us all here, he brought the Impala, too, so he’s not exactly… no, he’s just kind of… preoccupied.”

Dean suspected they were talking about him. Not that he cared. He was sitting in a shitty chair beside the only bed in the tiny house in the middle of nowhere. In bed, Castiel lay bare-chested with Daniel lying on top of him. Castiel had not woken since his fight with Lucifer. He’d started breathing again, but beyond that, there were no signs of improvement. Worse, no signs that _Castiel_ was still in there. He looked scarily like a brain-dead coma patient, alive in the strict medical sense but nothing else. Even more disturbing, Daniel was unsettled. Dean had placed the baby on Castiel’s chest, hoping the child would bring Castiel around, but also because Daniel still needed to grace-nurse. Whenever Daniel was soaking up the good stuff, he was always quiet and content. Nothing blissed out the kid quite like a hit of angel grace. But for hours now, he’d cried non-stop. Not wailing, but a constant low-level sob like something was wrong but he was too young to know what.

And there wasn’t a damn thing Dean could do but sit there.

“I really don’t know,” Sam said lowly, like he was trying not to let Dean hear, but the house was too tiny to keep secrets. “Cas has hardly gotten any better since he killed Lucifer.” A sigh. “I wish I did. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Frustrated and helpless, Dean reached out and gently stroked Daniel’s naked back. The baby gasped at the contact, like he was feeling for something in it, then he resumed his off-kilter cry when he didn’t find it.

“Yeah, okay… I’ll keep in touch.” Sam hung up the phone and came into the bedroom, where Dean was still leaning forward and trying uselessly to calm his son.

Sam stopped next to Dean and looked down at the baby and angel. “The skin-on-skin isn’t helping?” he asked miserably.

“No,” Dean sighed.

When they first came to this little oasis in the wheat, they’d pulled Castiel’s ruined clothes off him, put him in sweat pants and a t-shirt of Dean’s, and put him in bed to let him recover. Then they’d started this wait-and-watch-and-see pattern as Daniel let them know that something wasn’t working like it was supposed to. For whatever reason, the baby wasn’t getting the sustaining grace he needed from the motionless angel. Desperate and at a loss, they thought maybe the two of them being skin-to-skin might make the transfer of grace easier in Castiel’s weakened state. Castiel’s/Dean’s white t-shirt lay discarded on the hardwood floor, mocking them for thinking its thin material could have made a difference.

Dean glanced up at Sam and saw his brother’s troubled expression. Even without a mirror, Dean knew his was even worse. And he most definitely didn’t want to talk about it, so he’d make them talk about something else. “Who was that on the phone?”

“Ellen.”

“They all okay?”

“Yeah, everyone’s fine.”

Dean slowly drew back, his hand sliding off Daniel, and sat back in the chair. “Where did Lucifer send them?”

“Belgium.”

Dean’s eyebrows rose.

“Yeah,” Sam snorted, like it might be funny if everything else wasn’t so decidedly _not_ , “Ellen’s pretty pissed about it.”

“Bet Jo’s loving it, though,” Dean commented. He couldn’t really see Ellen getting a kick out of visiting a foreign country, but he imagined Jo was secretly (or not so secretly) enjoying the impromptu trip abroad.

Daniel squirmed against Castiel’s skin, face scrunched and little hands balled in frustrated fists.

Dean’s gut clenched at the sight. 

The baby’s cries being the only sound in the house was unbearable. That might have been why Dean blurted out what he did. “I was going to say yes to Michael.”

At first, Sam just stood there quietly. “I was going to say yes to Lucifer.”

They left it at that… acknowledgment of the lengths they had both been willing to go to for family before Castiel showed up and saved them all.

With a sigh, Sam shuffled a step back and said, “I’m going to go outside and see if I can find _anything_ that might give us an idea where we are… you going to be okay here alone?”

‘I’m _not_ alone,’ Dean wanted to counter, but he just nodded and waved, “Yeah, fine. Just don’t go too far. Stay in sight of the house.”

Whether he would or not, Sam didn’t bother with outright arguing with his brother. Having his family on their sickbed apparently got Dean the kid-glove treatment. 

Sam turned and went out the front door.

And Dean might not be _alone_ , but damn did it feel like he was.

He sat at Castiel’s bedside nearly an hour, listening to Daniel cry and not being able to do anything about it, when he had to get up to go to the bathroom.

Coming back, he was several steps away from the bedroom when Daniel went suddenly silent.

Dean rushed back into the room…

… only to find Castiel and Daniel were not alone in it. 

Gabriel was there, standing on the far side of the bed. He had Daniel in his arms, holding the baby to his chest.

Dean stiffened at first at the sight, then he strode forward and glared across the bed at Gabriel. “What are you doing here? And who the hell said you could touch Daniel?”

Gabriel lifted his eyebrows arrogantly at Dean. “Not exactly the thank you I was expecting.”

“Why the hell should I thank _you_?” Dean’s eyes went to Daniel then back up into Gabriel’s face. “Give me my son,” Dean growled, because this was the guy who’d tormented him and Sam and beat the shit out of Castiel and not given two shits about saving the world.

A surprisingly calm expression settled over Gabriel’s face. “I’m actually trying to help.” Gabriel looked down at the baby against his chest and brushed one hand over Daniel’s back. It gave Dean pause. Because it was a shockingly gentle touch. Because he really took a moment to appreciate the fact that Daniel wasn’t distressed anymore now that Gabriel was holding him. On principle, Dean wanted to throw a fit, but despite himself a knot of tension in his spine loosened.

Belatedly, Dean wondered if Gabriel was petting Daniel’s wings.

“Frankly, I’m a little humiliated having to play angel wet-nurse,” Gabriel groused lightly, “but Castiel needs all his grace devoted to healing himself.” The archangel half-smiled and glanced down at Castiel. “Not that he wasn’t doing his damnedest to give the boy what he needed.”

Dean ventured a step closer. “So… Cas is still in there?”

“Oh, he’s in there… he’s just far away.”

Dean looked down at Castiel. Without the baby on his chest, Dean could see the scar of Daniel’s birth. When he and Sam had stripped Castiel to put different clothes on him, they’d been taken aback to see the mark. The day Daniel arrived, Castiel’s chest had borne the red irritation of some trauma, but he’d redressed before they could see that a scar had formed. But one certainly had, and as far as scars went, it was pretty kick-ass. Silvery-white scar tissue branded the shape of a tiny angel into the skin of Castiel’s chest. Small arms spread wide, tiny legs pointed like a diver, the fragile figure of a newborn body, the rounded shape of a head, and the whispery-faint pale impression of tiny wings had been seared into Castiel’s body like a little Vitruvian man with wings.

It took some effort for Dean to drag his eyes away from the shade of Daniel and look up into Castiel’s face, so still and slack. “But he’ll be okay, right?”

Gabriel turned a sharp, serious look on Dean. “I don’t think you understand the magnitude of what he did. It’s been known since the beginning – it was _written_ – that the only angel equal to Lucifer was Michael. And then along comes Castiel, the little rebel angel, and he blasts Lucifer to kingdom come. And you expect him to just walk that off?”

“You were the one who said he might be able to do it,” Dean argued. “If it was to save Daniel…”

“Well, that was the _theory_ , but _honestly_ ,” Gabriel gave a fatalistic shrug, “I didn’t think Castiel could pull it off. A stronger angel, maybe, but the little angel of Thursday…? Truth is, he’s not much, as angels go.”

“He’s the best of your sorry lot,” Dean snapped.

Gabriel didn’t react caustically to that, which was shocking. “Normally I’d take umbrage to that, but given recent events… you know, Dean-o, for the first time I might actually agree with you.”

Would wonders never cease.

Then Dean remembered that Gabriel had never actually answered his question. “But… but Cas is going to be _okay_ , right?”

Something strangely warm flashed behind Gabriel’s eyes as he regarded his unconscious brother. “At this point, I’m done underestimating him. He’ll recover… no doubt for the sake of you and this child alone.”

Dean swallowed a mixed-bag of feelings at that, because Gabriel was the last person he was going to pour his heart out to.

Then there was an awkward silence while Gabriel let Daniel soak up his grace.

“So where are we?” Dean finally asked.

“Someplace safe… does the rest matter?”

“What about Detroit?”

That earned a snort. “There is no more _Detroit_. Since you’ve been tucked away here, we angels plucked out as many humans not infected with the demonic virus as we could in a mad grab-and-dash… then we wiped out the city to take care of the ones that were.”

Dean should be upset about that, he really should. Because angels did make mistakes, they weren’t perfect, and no doubt innocents were left behind, uninfected people that were destroyed when the city was. But honestly, after the near-miss he’d had with his own family, Dean couldn’t spare anything for strangers. He couldn’t even claim excessive force, because he’d seen a future overrun with Croats. If stopping that from happening meant taking out an entire city, and a few innocent people with it, well…

“Fine… next question, why were you there? With Michael? You rejoin the angel-squad?”

Gabriel looked uncomfortable. And, for a second, he looked resistant to telling Dean jack squat. Maybe the silence was just as awkward to him as it was to Dean that he answered him at all. “Since Lucifer’s death, I’ve rejoined the Host, yes. I’d been gone so long that it’s weird being back… you have any idea what it feels like to return after being the one that ran away from home?”

Dean didn’t, but Sam would.

“Well, let me tell you, _aaaawkwaaard_. But before that, I was busy busting Castiel out of a ring of holy fire.”

Dean jolted. “You what?”

“That’s right,” the archangel’s eyebrows rose, “you didn’t know about that… guess I can forgive you a little for not kissing my feet in gratitude the second you saw me. Yeah, big brother Lucifer had Castiel in a burning cage.”

“And you set him free,” Dean said in disbelief.

Gabriel shrugged and glanced down at Daniel like it was a small thing he’d done. When, in fact, it had directly led to Castiel’s show-down with the Devil.

Dean narrowed his eyes. “What happened to all that ‘I’m not getting involved’ crap you kept telling us?”

“I wanted to stay out of it, believe me,” Gabriel acknowledged. Then he seemed to tense, curling inward like a dog too used to being hit (and from the cavalier bastard that shied from nothing, it looked extremely out of place). “Then Lucifer killed so many of my brothers and sisters at once…”

The suicide-bomber demons in Omaha.

Gabriel scowled. “Losing them like that, all at once… no angel could ignore that.”

The archangel looked harrowed by the experience… just as Castiel had looked stricken and bereft at the mass-slaying of his brothers and sisters. It had hit Gabriel just as hard, obviously. Seemed there was no escaping family in Heaven any more than one could on Earth.

“And I thought, if that was hard, losing _them_ , how painful would it be to lose thousands more? Because if Lucifer won, that’s what would happen. Lucifer would have to kill countless angels to secure his place. So I made a choice. Let one brother die to save the others.”

But even then, even after having gone the whole ‘the needs of the many’ Spock route, Gabriel looked haunted by losing his brother. The damned brother, yes, but Dean knew what it was like to love a brother despite the darkness inside him and the wicked fate he’d been destined for.

Dean didn’t want to feel bad for Gabriel – hell, he didn’t want to _like_ the guy – but at that confession, it was hard to really, truly hate him.

“I still think it was jacked that it was up to the angels at all,” Dean grumbled. “God should have stopped Lucifer.”

Gabriel snorted and shook his head. “You still don’t get it, Dean.”

“What?”

“Could you kill Daniel?”

Dean reacted to the question like a physical strike. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything. The angels are God’s children. He’s our _Father_. Surely you can see the parallel… and the dilemma.”

“Gabe… all I can see is that the family upstairs is severely screwed up.”

Gabriel actually chuckled. “I won’t argue with you on that.” He made a face. “And don’t call me ‘Gabe’.”

“Why not? Too stuck up?”

Gabriel gave Dean what _almost_ amounted to a teasing look. “Save the pet names and terms of endearment for _your_ angel.”

“Whatever.” Dean realized quite suddenly that he wasn’t on edge. He’d relaxed. Gabriel looked pretty chilled out, too. “Crap… did we just have a moment? Did we _bond_ or some shit?”

The archangel tipped his head in introspection. “You know, I do have this sneaking suspicion that if Sam were here, I’d want to braid his hair,” Gabriel answered in false falsetto.

Dean couldn’t help it… he laughed.

In the silence that followed, Gabriel resumed brushing his hand down Daniel’s back. As he did, he stared down pensively at the child. “You know,” he said after a minute, “he’s pretty remarkable. Depending on the interpretation of events, some might say it was actually this little guy that saved the world.”

“He was remarkable before that.”

“Why, Dean Winchester, I daresay this boy has you wrapped around his little finger.”

It was a day of firsts… Gabriel agreeing with Dean, Dean agreeing with Gabriel… 

Now that the red-alert was over, Dean went over to the bed and sat on the edge, next to Castiel. He studied the angel quietly a moment. Was he just imagining the hint of color in Castiel’s cheeks, the sense that maybe he wasn’t as deathly-still as before, now that he wasn’t trying to give any of his grace to Daniel? 

He hoped it wasn’t just a matter of him seeing what he wanted to see.

“Hey, Gabe?”

A long-suffering sigh preceded the archangel’s resigned/annoyed, “What?”

“Thanks.”

**********

When Castiel woke, Dean was the first thing he saw. The hunter was leaning in close, invading Castiel’s personal space as the angel’s eyes fluttered open.

“Cas?”

“Dean…?” Castiel croaked. Disoriented, confused… but alive.

Dean smiled. “You gotta stop scaring the shit out of me.”

Then Castiel remembered. Lucifer. Daniel.

“Where’s Daniel?” Castiel asked in a rising panic, trying to force into his body the strength to move to go and find his son.

“He’s fine, he’s right over there,” Dean turned his head. Castiel followed the direction of the hunter’s gaze and froze when he saw Gabriel perched on the windowsill, watching him and holding Daniel in his arms.

“Welcome back, bro,” the archangel offered with a cheeky grin.

Castiel didn’t understand what was happening. Why Gabriel was there, why he was holding Daniel, where _here_ was, what had happened after Lucifer…

But in that instant, only one thing mattered. His grace cried for just one thing.

“Give him to me,” Castiel said hoarsely to Dean, reaching up and grasping the hunter’s forearm to impress upon him the urgency of the request. The raw _need_ behind it. “Please.”

Dean studied him a second before he patted Castiel on the shoulder and said, “Yeah, sure… I’ll bring him to you.”

While Dean was collecting the baby from Gabriel, Castiel struggled into a semi-upright position against the headboard. When Dean returned to the bed, he was smiling at him with Daniel in his arms.

Castiel barely gave Dean a chance to hand the baby over before he was reaching out and plucking the boy from Dean’s arms. Greedily, like a grace-deep hunger, he brought Daniel to his chest and held him close. The reunion of their graces, so alike and yet each unique, rejoiced at the boundaries of them both, crashing against the fine line where Daniel ended and Castiel began. But it was still not close enough, and Castiel pressed Daniel to him, wishing he could take the baby entirely into his grace, cocoon him there, wrap him in the light and heat that _was_ Castiel, where the child would always be protected and safe.

Once, what seemed like a very long time ago, Castiel desperately wanted Daniel out. Now, he wished he could tangle their energies like they had been before, existing in a state of alone and never-alone at the same time. He never wanted Daniel to be away from him again.

“Hey… take it easy, Cas,” Dean was speaking, and he sounded concerned. “It’s okay… he’s fine.”

Castiel unfurled his wings and closed them around himself and his son, sheltering them together in their ethereal warmth. Daniel made a happy sound, and his baby wings arched toward Castiel’s chest… trying to hug with feathers of light and energy but not having the control to do it.

The effort was enough.

Castiel brought a hand up to cup Daniel’s head, turned his face toward his son, and he kissed Daniel’s dark, soft hair.

He sensed more than saw Gabriel leave. 

Dean scooted closer to them on the mattress, his soul radiating good things in ways Dean Winchester’s soul rarely did. “How did you find us, Cas?” he asked in an awed whisper.

He remembered the thread he’d followed, the song in his grace he’d traced through space. “I didn’t find you… I found Daniel. I sensed him.” The sensation had been powerful, unyielding, a guiding light, a beacon leading him where he belonged. It felt like revelation, but his own, only Castiel’s to feel. “I think that I could find him anywhere.”

Dean didn’t respond right away. Castiel could see the conflict dancing behind the hunter’s eyes… have a ‘chick-flick moment’ or crack a joke. “Well, good… that’ll probably come in handy when he starts learning how to fly.” Dean grinned and leaned in closer to brush his fingers against Daniel’s back.

Even though Dean would not feel it, Castiel opened his wings, reached out with them, and engulfed Dean inside them along with himself and Daniel.

**********

Once, Castiel thought he knew peace. Surrounded on all sides by the grace of his brothers and sisters, absolute in his faith in God, blissfully without doubt, a mote in a sea of the divine. That used to be the measure of serenity for Castiel.

Now, he knew that for all that it had filled him, it had left him hollow, too. Something was missing, and he hadn’t even known it. 

He had a new measure of peace now. One he could see and touch. Perhaps he’d been among humans too long, because those qualities were immensely comforting.

It was night, though Castiel did not sleep. He didn’t need to sleep, but he was still in the bed. As night fell, Castiel had tried to give his place in the bed to Sam, but neither Winchester would hear of it. They insisted he needed to ‘take it easy’, and Castiel had learned that sometimes it was just easier not to fight the humans. They tried, and their hearts were in the right place. 

And, ultimately, the bed was not so bad a place to be.

Castiel lay on his right side on one side of the mattress. On the other, lying on his left facing the angel, was Dean. On the bed between them was Daniel. Sam was sleeping in the car just outside the house, having declared the backseat preferable to sleeping on the floor. Castiel cast his senses the short distance to the car now and then to check on the younger brother, making sure he was still safe and sound, but he did not physically leave the bed.

Despite his lack of need for sleep, Castiel found he did not want to get up.

Dean was fast asleep, left hand shoved up under his pillow and his right resting atop Daniel. It was the position he’d been in when he drifted off hours ago, fading out right in the middle of a conversation with Castiel. 

Those moments before Dean fell to sleep had been nice. Dean had climbed on the bed, they lay facing each other, and Dean told Castiel everything. The Masters house, the gathered hunters, the Croatoan-infected, the short time when Daniel was lost, Lucifer’s proposition. They talked like they always did, but they did it with their heads on pillows, the bed not allowing for much space between them… not that they stood far apart when they were on their feet, either. But the relaxed, vulnerable, trusting pose was more pleasant than Castiel would have thought. He lay there, gladly, and listened to Dean as his voice dropped lower, grew softer, formed words slower. Watching sleep steal up on the hunter gently, by degrees, was both fascinating and soothing.

Dean told Castiel about how he’d killed Lucifer.

Castiel didn’t remember it clearly. Mostly he remembered what he felt. Rage. Blinding, mindless fury. Fear. Love. It was more than any angel was built to feel, but it had allowed Castiel to take on Lucifer… and win.

He found himself staring down at Daniel. The frantic clinginess toward the child that he’d felt upon waking had ebbed, but the bond that spurred it remained. How amazing that such a tiny thing could evoke the enormity of feelings that Castiel experienced when he looked at the boy. At Daniel. His son.

Daniel stirred in his sleep without waking, turned his head toward Dean, then settled. Castiel’s mouth twitched at the corners. It was peculiar that Daniel slept at all, given that he was so much angel. Castiel wondered if it was his sliver of human free will… that he _chose_ to sleep.

Castiel’s eyes tracked back up to Dean’s face. He ended up staring, looking everywhere, taking his time. Dean liked to tease him about watching the human sleep, but when Dean was sleeping he was easier to study. Castiel could count the eyelashes resting on his cheeks, the light freckles sprinkled over his nose, the faint lines around his eyes (and not enough around his mouth). Castiel told Dean once that humanity was a work of art. Castiel was finding that he was an avid art-enthusiast. All humans had beauty, a grace of their own in a way, but not all humans were created equal. No one would ever convince Castiel that Dean Winchester was not a masterpiece.

A flicker of emotion danced across Dean’s features, the hint of a smile, and Castiel wondered what he was dreaming.

It was natural as breathing (more natural than, in truth) for Castiel to peer past the physical plane and peek into the human’s subconscious.

In his dream, Dean was running. Laughing and running his heart out. 

Only a few strides behind him, roughly eleven years old, ran Daniel. The boy was all skinny limbs and tousled black hair ruffling in the wind. His freckles, a few in the exact same places as Dean’s, were cinnamon-brown from a summer in the sun. Blue eyes shone as he chased after his father. Tucked against his shoulders were his speckled brown wings. He let out a laugh just like Dean’s, a laugh promising that one day he’d have a rich voice like Dean Winchester’s. Rich, but maybe just a little rougher than Dean’s.

Dean was starting to pull away from Daniel. He threw a look over his shoulder at his son. “Better find another gear, Danny! The werewolf’s right behind you!” There was no werewolf. Castiel could not distinguish how this training was different from play.

Daniel grinned impishly, gathered himself, and launched himself into the air. At the top arch of his leap, his wings snapped out. They caught the wind and he pushed up, away from the ground like it would not dare to hold him. With only a few beats of his wings, Daniel was whipping past Dean. He reached down and touched Dean on the top of his head. “Werewolf gotcha, Dad!” Daniel crowed as he rolled and climbed skyward. 

Dean staggered to a stop and fought to catch his breath… apparently it was hard to breathe and laugh at the same time. Under an oak tree, Sam was laughing so hard he had to hold his sides.

Castiel watched his son climb into the heavens, toward the sun with reckless abandon. He saw the small set of wings join another, larger set already in the air. His wings… belonging to Dean’s dream version of Castiel.

In bed, Castiel withdrew from Dean’s dreamscape. He didn’t want to see Dean’s dream Castiel. He didn’t want to feel inadequate in comparison, somehow expected to live up to this humanized angel that Castiel knew he could never be. He could only be what he was, and he had to hope that would be enough for Dean.

They were resting in bed together with their son between them, so perhaps it was.

Castiel would have been content to lie there quietly all night, just watching Dean and Daniel sleep… but the sound of wings made Castiel look over his shoulder toward the angel he sensed come into the room.

It was not a visitor Castiel would have expected. “Balthazar?” He pitched his voice to speak in a register humans could not hear so as not to wake Dean.

“It’s good to see you, Castiel.” Balthazar matched his voice to Castiel’s, leaving Dean oblivious to the reunion taking place in the room.

Castiel got out of bed and turned to face the other angel. Before the Winchesters and coming to know a human definition of the term, Castiel would have called Balthazar his friend. He considered him one still, though the meaning seemed to need redefining for Castiel to know exactly how Balthazar fell in the spectrum of friendship as he now understood it.

But he was friend enough that Castiel was glad to see him.

“I’ve missed your company, Balthazar,” Castiel began, then he looked down at Balthazar, saw through the vessel to the true Balthazar, and he could not mask his surprise. “You’ve shattered.” Castiel knew all too well the shape of a shattered one lying at an odd angle to the parent grace, already trying to be its own life-form.

Balthazar glanced down at himself with an expansive, bored gesture. “Yeah, quite a few of us have since Lucifer’s demon-bomb party went off with an impressive bang. Lost a lot of angels that need to be replaced. Can’t say I’m thrilled about it, but Zachariah’s already agreed to offer his grace for the separation. Not that I particularly like him much, but it hardly matters, so…” he shrugged, “just biding my time until it’s over and I’ve done my part for God and country, so to speak.”

He sounded so unconcerned about it… it was _funny_ , because the same situation had been so catastrophic for Castiel. Even if it had worked out well in the end.

“Zachariah’s still alive?” Castiel asked curiously.

“Alive and miserable,” Balthazar smirked. “After his time-bending experiment to get Dean Winchester to crack fell flat, Michael put him in a time-out. Said he needed to think about his failures and, I quote, ‘stop inciting further animosity in Dean Winchester toward angelkind’.”

“He must hate that.”

“Immensely… it’s delightful.”

Castiel huffed. Then he looked up at Balthazar. As far as angels went, Balthazar was probably his closest friend in the ranks. Castiel frowned. “I’d hoped you might find me when I fell.” He’d had the Winchesters, of course, but it wasn’t the same as the company of angels. As much as Castiel treasured the Winchesters, the angels were his kind.

Balthazar’s smile disappeared. “I wanted to. I really did. But Michael… he forbad it. He gave those of us with ‘sympathetic tendencies’ toward you strict orders not to contact you. He hoped you’d get past this rebellious phase and come to your senses.” Balthazar grinned. “And instead, you go and topple Lucifer!”

Castiel ducked his head.

“I must say, I’m _impressed_. A lot of us are. How did you ever manage it?”

“I was properly motivated.”

“Ah, yes,” Balthazar cleared his throat, “the shattered one. We heard about that, too.” The other angel studied Castiel a moment, as if searching his old friend for this unexpectedly remarkable creature he must have had within him all along. “Good Lord, Castiel, Heaven will be talking about you for a long time: rebelling, killing Lucifer, breaking away a shattered one using a _human soul_. There’s no precedent for the things you’ve done.” Balthazar frowned. “Castiel… I am so sorry I couldn’t help you during the separation. I would have, but Michael…”

Obviously would have allowed Castiel to die before sending him help. And though Castiel wanted to be angry about that, he understood angel thinking too well. Castiel’s defection to the human side had greatly impeded Michael’s attempts to gain Dean’s consent to be a vessel. If the Winchesters had not had the aide of an angel, they might have conceded defeat and played their parts. 

Michael did not know the stubbornness of the Winchester boys as Castiel did. 

“I understand. You had orders.”

“That sounds like a cowardly excuse,” Balthazar grumbled.

Castiel almost smiled. “Careful, Balthazar… you’re starting to sound rebellious.”

“Might have been better if I had… at least you wouldn’t have been alone.”

“I wasn’t. Perhaps I was not among angels, but I was never alone.” Castiel glanced back toward the bed, where Dean and Daniel were sleeping. He felt great contentment when he looked upon them. More, he knew, than an angel should. And yet, he didn’t care that he was not allowed.

Balthazar came up next to Castiel and looked down at the mostly-angel baby. “So, this is the shattered one, huh?” He studied the infant from a distance a moment, then he shook his head. “He’s so _odd_. He’s clearly one of us, but he’s also so…”

“Human,” Castiel agreed. He meant it in a complimentary way. Balthazar didn’t. Castiel refused to let it bother him. He’d been like Balthazar once. He knew the prejudices that kept angels from seeing grace in the ‘mud monkeys’. Maybe they were afraid to see how near humans could be to angels, and how close to humans angel could be.

Balthazar stepped back and regarded Castiel curiously. “So, Castiel… now that it’s over, will you come back home? Bring that new little brother with you and return to Heaven and the Host?”

“My son will have a richer life for being with his human family.”

“Your…” Balthazar’s mouth gaped open a moment. His eyes moved from Castiel to Daniel then back to Castiel, then he pursed his lips. “Well, yes, he is part human… I can see that it might be best. But you could still come back.”

“I was cast out of Heaven,” Castiel reminded Balthazar.

Balthazar blinked. “Wait… have you not spoken to Michael?”

Castiel stiffened. “No.”

“Well, that won’t do.” Balthazar lifted his head to address the ceiling. “Michael –”

“Balthazar, _don’t_ –”

“Would you please come talk to Castiel?”

The words were barely spoken before Michael was there.

Balthazar ducked aside, bowing to the more powerful angel with a submissiveness Castiel never saw from his friend unless an archangel was present. Castiel had been that way once, so programmed and prone to lower himself before the caste of archangels that it was practically a reflex.

But now… now his protective instincts flared. He didn’t know if Michael was a threat to Daniel or not. He wasn’t going to take any chances. Not when it came to Daniel’s safety. 

So soon after killing Lucifer, he didn’t know if he had the strength to take on another archangel… but by God, he’d try. The instant Michael was in the room, Castiel moved. He put himself squarely between Michael and Daniel, rallying himself to protect his son.

“I mean Daniel no harm,” Michael assured him.

Castiel relaxed a little… but only a little. 

Michael didn’t speak for a moment, taking in the scene with that crippling intense calm about him. Other angels blustered and went into theatrics (like Zachariah) or threw around their might like a toy (like Gabriel), but Michael was different. He was steady and always had been, the solid, dutiful older brother. It was easy to look up to him, easy to follow him. He would never say so (for obvious reasons), but Castiel saw a lot of Michael in Dean. Maybe it was what convinced Castiel to fall for the human, to follow him to the ends of the earth and into the end of the world, if need be. An earthly grace, akin to that of the greatest archangel, masquerading as a damaged soul.

Finally, Michael turned to look toward Balthazar. “Leave.”

And Balthazar did without question. Then it was just Castiel and Michael facing one another. Castiel waited anxiously for the archangel to speak, the whole time acutely aware of his family at his back.

When Michael spoke to Castiel, it was not with his ‘might and wrath of Heaven’ voice. He sounded more like a true brother… or as near to one as angels ever got. “You look better.” At Castiel’s questioning head-tilt, Michael clarified, “I was there right after you killed Lucifer. You were barely tethered to your grace.”

“It was no small thing, smiting Lucifer.”

Michael almost smiled. “No… and for you, Castiel, it should have been impossible.” Michael looked hard at Castiel, searching him for something. He looked consternated, fascinated, appalled, and impressed all at once – it made for a confusing, jumbled expression. “I have to say that Heaven doesn’t really know what to do with you. I don’t know what to do with you.”

“Why does anything have to be ‘done with me’ at all?” Castiel asked, a tad peevish. He’d definitely been among humans too long to get snarky with an archangel as powerful as Michael.

But if Michael was irritated, he didn’t show it. He just shook his head. “You have challenged many of the things that we’ve always held sacred… things deemed immutable. _Ordained_. What you’ve done… it has cast doubt on everything. Truthfully, the uncertainty has made a lot of angels uncomfortable.”

“Including you?”

Michael blinked at the point-blank question (the old Castiel would never have thrown such a blunt question in Michael’s face), but he recovered quickly. “Yes… including me. You’ve forced me to think about things I never had to before. Destiny, fate, God’s plan. My faith…” Michael paused, as if unsure if he should continue. His voice was barely audible when he said, “My faith is shaken.”

Castiel sucked in a breath, stunned to hear such a confession from Michael. In some way, it was frightening to know that the mightiest of angels was questioning his faith. It was like seeing the sun give out.

“Since falling,” Castiel began carefully, “I’ve often wondered if perhaps this wasn’t God’s plan all along. Not these exact events, necessarily, but this in a general sense.”

Michael frowned.

“We haven’t been able to find God,” Castiel began to explain. “Throughout the Apocalypse, He’s been conspicuously absent… and I began to think that maybe that was deliberate. What if He wants us to have free will?”

“We don’t have free will.”

“We do. I’m proof of that. Anael and Gabriel and… and Lucifer are proof that angels have the potential for self-determination. It’s there, we just don’t know how to exercise it. Maybe this, everything that’s happened… maybe it was a lesson in teaching us how.”

“But why would God leave us?” Michael asked, a touch forlorn.

“We would never think for ourselves if He didn’t.”

Michael took that in a moment. Then he grimaced. “Whether that’s true or not, clearly we no longer have a choice. Your actions prove that much. We must learn free will.”

“Balthazar made it sound as if you’ve been leading the angels.”

“Reluctantly. They want to be told what to do.”

Castiel remembered that compulsion well. “They’ll get over that.”

That startled a chuckle out of Michael. It was the first time Castiel had ever seen a spark of humor in his older brother. Michael was always so somber and serious, always behaving like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. And in a very real sense, he always had. He’d known since the beginning that one day he’d have to fight his brother and that the fate of the world would hang in the balance. No wonder Michael always had an undercurrent of sadness about him, under the strength and power and glory of God that made his grace shine brighter than all the other angels’.

“For better or worse,” Michael stated, “Heaven will be changing.”

“It will be better.”

“You sound certain of that.”

Castiel nodded. “I have faith.”

It was apparently the right thing to say. Michael seemed bolstered to know that faith still existed in the absence of blind trust in God’s plan. He stood taller, became again the pillar of strength for Heaven and its Host, and whatever vulnerable, genuine moment he’d shared with Castiel was gone in the span of a breath. Castiel wasn’t surprised; he hadn’t expected to kindle some kind of close-knit bond with the archangel… for though they were both angels, they were two entirely different breeds. Castiel would never be equal to Michael.

He was content to be different.

Michael locked a look on Castiel. “Castiel. In recognition of the part you played in the war against Lucifer, however _unexpected_ a part, you should no longer consider yourself an outcast.”

Castiel went still.

“I presume you’ll be returning to Heaven?” It was barely a question, for Michael was unused to ever being questioned.

But Castiel had learned to question. And to want.

“No.”

Michael masked his surprise well… though not his reproach and disapproval as he said evenly, “Your family is in Heaven.”

“I have a family here.”

At that, Michael’s eyes went to Dean and Daniel in the bed. He looked at them a long time, so long that Castiel started to feel twitchy, before Michael finally returned his gaze to Castiel. “I see.” Again, that expression that tried to do too much at once. Castiel could only stand there and wait.

Michael cocked his head in thought. “The span of a human life is not so long a time to be gone.” Michael made peace with that decision with quiet aplomb. “When you’re ready to return, you’re welcome in Heaven.” He spread his wings in preparation to take flight, but he stopped short and added, “As is Daniel.”

Castiel let out a breath of relief he did not know he had been holding. “Thank you, Michael.”

An odd look crossed Michael’s face. “Thank you, Castiel.” 

Then he was gone.

Relaxing in earnest, Castiel turned back toward the bed. Dean and Daniel slept on, father and son undisturbed by the parade of angelic visitors.

There was no reason to, but Castiel returned to bed.

**********

Once Castiel had recovered his strength, he transported everyone – Dean, Sam, Daniel, and the Impala (because she counted as a ‘someone’) – back to Bobby Singer’s. If he’d had his way, Dean would have had Castiel wait longer to do any ‘heavy lifting’, but Castiel didn’t take well to being grounded. As if to prove just how fit he was to fly, despite Dean’s over-protectiveness, Castiel whisked off to Belgium to fetch the Harvelles, Gerald, and Officer Winters, returning everyone safely and looking none the worse for wear.

That was a week ago. Since Detroit, things had been quiet. To a group of hunters accustomed to the anarchy of the Apocalypse, the lull was downright spooky. Dean couldn’t stop thinking of it as the calm before the storm. From the way Sam’s eyes darted any time a phone rang, Dean knew his younger brother felt the same way.

But a week went by and there was nothing of biblical proportions to report. Not to say that there was _nothing_ to report. Dean could hardly turn around without seeing something about Detroit. The news coverage out of Michigan showed people royally up in arms, blaming the decimation of Detroit on everything from military weapons’ testing to pointing fingers at other countries and crying terrorist attack. That’s when Dean quit watching television. He just couldn’t handle more ‘end of the world as we know it’ talk.

It took a few days, but the Winchesters finally began to stand down from a state of high-alert. Then they were really at a loss for what to do with themselves. By some unspoken agreement, Dean and Sam decided that they needed to catch their breaths instead of throwing themselves into the next disaster the way they usually did. It felt like the right thing to do, but that didn’t mean Dean knew what to do with his free hours.

Because it was something he was good at, something that had absolutely nothing to do with saving the planet, Dean started to work on some of the cars Bobby had backed up. It was relaxing, and it gave him something to do with his hands. It also kept him from thinking ‘what now?’… because he really did not know.

Dean was working under the hood of a ’68 Charger that could be a sweet ride with a little TLC, looked up, and realized the sun was starting to go down. Another day without a disaster yanking him around. It wasn’t the life he knew, but after the last few years, he thought he could get used to it.

When Dean went back in the house, he found Sam at Bobby’s desk, several of the elder hunter’s leather-bound books open as Sam perused each one in turn, a pad and pen at hand as he jotted down notes. He looked like a college student cramming for a final exam in the campus library… he’d probably looked just like that once, at Stanford several lifetimes ago.

“Hey,” Dean nodded toward the books, “what’s all that?”

Sam leaned back from the books but did not put down his pen. “A hunter Bobby knows called in with a case he’s having trouble figuring out. I thought I’d pitch in and help him do the research.”

“Oh yeah? Anything we should handle?” Dean asked. So much for getting used to taking a break from hunting for a while.

“Bobby said this guy can handle things by himself – prefers to, actually – he just isn’t the best at digging through the literature.”

“A man of action, not a bookworm, I get that,” Dean nodded. And he let it go. Maybe he was sorta-kinda ready to step back from hunting, at least temporarily, after all.

So instead of throwing his duffle bag in the trunk of the Impala and speeding off to the next hunt, Dean went to the chair across the desk from Sam, turned it around, and straddled it. He rested his arms on the back as Sam returned to his work. 

Dean watched Sam for a while, unable to stop himself from smirking. This was really Sam in his element, flexing his nerd muscles. Here, he was miles and miles away from the guy primed to be Lucifer’s bodysuit.

“So where’s Bobby?” Dean asked.

Without looking up from his work, Sam gestured vaguely toward a hallway. “He thought he might have some notebooks in a back closet that might help figure out this… whatever it is.”

Since Detroit, the hunting world had seen a refreshing lack of biblical disasters, but the oldies-but-goodies were clearly still out there. Witches, vampires, shape-shifters, poltergeists… the simple stuff was alive and kicking (or not-alive but still definitely kicking). Bobby got a pretty regular stream of calls from hunters tapping into his knack for saving others’ asses from a distance. It was weirdly reassuring to Dean to know that the world he’d been raised in, all that he knew, was still out there, even if the Apocalypse had misfired. He didn’t know if he’d be able to handle a world that didn’t need any hunters. Basically, a world that didn’t need _him_.

“Where’s Cas?”

Sam looked up at that and pointed in the direction of the kitchen with his pen. “I saw him head out back with Daniel a little while ago.” Dean was about to get up and go find the angel and his son (because watching Sam read was about as thrilling as watching paint dry) when Sam spoke… and his measured words stilled Dean. “He’s… been hanging around a lot lately.”

The angel had. 

It was awesome having Cas around all the time, but Dean had an uneasy feeling that it couldn’t last. Much as the Apocalypse had sucked ass, it had also been holding their group together. Their common goal kept the angel earthbound, kept the flight-prone brother close, and made Dean happy as no one in their right mind should be at the end of the world.

Even during the worst moments, a small, dark part of Dean that lived in constant fear of abandonment had been relieved that there was something binding them to a shared cause… something that kept everyone from leaving him.

Now that reason to stick together was gone, and Dean felt down to his bones that the first one to break ranks and go their separate way would be the angel. 

Castiel told Dean about Michael’s late-night visit after Lucifer’s defeat; he knew about Castiel and Daniel being invited into the Host. Dean kept waiting for Cas to announce that he was being ordered back to Heaven. He hadn’t _yet_ , but how long could that last? Heaven was _home_ to Castiel; he’d stayed away as long as he did because he’d been banished. Now he was welcome to go back. 

And if he did leave, would he take Daniel with him? After all, Daniel was more angel than he was human. Between Heaven and Earth, if he belonged anywhere, it was probably in Heaven (no matter how much Dean hated the very thought). 

If Cas decided to rejoin his brothers and sisters in Heaven, Daniel had to go with him. Daniel needed to be with his angel parent in order to survive. If Cas wanted to go, Dean would _make_ the angel take Daniel with him. Dean wasn’t willing to risk Daniel’s life to keep him, dangerously separated from the angels.

Which meant Dean would lose both of them, the angel and his son, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing he could do about it.

Just thinking about it all had put Dean off his feed and given him more than one headache.

And that was so much of his trouble. The lull in the action had given Dean too much time to _think_. He’d take action and instinct over quiet and contemplation any day. Because lately, most of his contemplation was about Castiel leaving.

He would never admit to anyone just how much the idea really bothered him. Dean did his damnedest not to label whatever existed between him, Cas, and Daniel… but he knew for a fact he didn’t want it broken up.

“He has to stick around for Daniel,” Dean answered Sam cagily. As if Daniel was somehow bound to the earth, an anchor keeping Cas with the Winchesters. Dean wished that were the case.

Sam pursed his lips, like he saw right through that, but to Dean’s relief Sam didn’t pick at it. Instead, Sam’s expression shifted, went all ‘let’s do some mental exercising’, and he cocked his head. “You know, I’ve wondered… how would things have been different – or would they have been different at all – if Cas had used my soul instead of yours.”

“For Daniel?”

Sam nodded.

Dean frowned. He could honestly say he’d never wondered about that. Not until Sam brought it up. Then he tried, and it just sat with him all wrong. Daniel was _his_ son. He’d rather not linger on a hypothetical alternate universe where Daniel wasn’t.

“Probably wouldn’t be named Daniel,” Dean quipped dryly, “since Cas totally Brangelinaed my name and his to come up with Daniel.”

Sam chuckled. “Yeah… he’d probably be baby Cam.”

“Dude, lame.”

“Good thing Cas used yours instead,” Sam agreed. Then the teasing light in his eyes turned serious and he said gently, “It worked out for the best. I wouldn’t have been nearly as good a dad as you.”

Dean squirmed. “What are you talking about? You’d be a good dad.”

“Yeah, at least I hope so. I’d try.” Sam smiled far too sincerely. “But not as good as you.”

“Okay, this is getting girly,” Dean grumbled, hoping Sam didn’t notice him blushing as he stood up from the chair. “I’m gonna go find Cas.”

It didn’t take long. Castiel was visible from the back porch, his back to the door as he faced the setting sun. 

The sight of Cas in regular clothes still caught Dean off-guard sometimes. With Jimmy’s clothes a lost cause after the battle with Lucifer, and the borrowed clothes from Dean fitting the slimmer man poorly, Dean had gone out and bought the angel new clothes. Knowing they would likely be the only clothes Castiel ever wore from then on out, he ended up putting way too much thought into what he picked. Dean had tried asking Castiel what he wanted to wear, now that he had the opportunity to choose, but the angel was indifferent. He said anything Dean chose would be fine. And he probably meant that literally. If Dean had come home with a pink tutu, Cas would probably have put it on and thanked Dean for it.

If Sam knew the truth of how Dean made his choice, Sam would have laughed his ass off and Dean would never live it down. Because Dean got clothes for Castiel not all that different from what Dean himself wore… so that when they were seen together, it wouldn’t look like one of them didn’t belong. He wanted the three of them to actually look like a family together.

Dean played it off as meaning nothing, but even he knew it actually kind of meant a lot.

Seeing Castiel without the suit and trench coat was strange, but the jeans, mottled green shirt, and dark leather jacket hadn’t taken long to grow on Dean.

Dean couldn’t see Daniel from where he was on the porch, but the fact that Castiel was swaying gently foot to foot meant the baby had to be with him.

Dean walked across the backyard to stand at Castiel’s side. Daniel was curled against Castiel’s chest, the very picture of a content baby. He was pressed to the angel’s sternum, high enough that his head was tucked just underneath Castiel’s chin. Cas swayed side to side with a rhythm so steady that it would make the sea jealous. With one hand he held the boy securely to him and with the other he curled his fingers around Daniel’s head, his thumb brushing gently against Daniel’s hair.

Dean remembered Cas right after Daniel had been born, how he’d held Daniel with all the cuddliness of a porcupine or an undetonated bomb. Castiel now was a far cry.

“Heya, Cas.”

“Hello, Dean.” The angel’s rhythmic motions, his sway and his caress, did not falter at the distraction Dean presented. 

Turning the tables on the angel, Dean simply stood for a moment and watched Castiel. He should be scared of how peaceful he felt watching Castiel and Daniel together. 

Because he feared it couldn’t last. 

All Dean’s life, anything that made him feel even close to happy was snatched away from him. With all the time he’d had to think lately, he realized that this could make him happy. If he let down his guard even just a little and let it. Conditioned anxiety set in the more Dean dwelled on the idea of having this: a family beyond his brother and a surrogate father.

It was meant for other people, not hunters… certainly not Dean Winchester.

But they’d saved the god damn world… they fucking _deserved it_. Not that deserving something made much difference in Dean’s experience.

“What’s up?” Dean asked, tacitly ignoring the curl of distress in his stomach.

“The sky.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Cas…”

“I wanted to show Daniel the sunset.”

At that, Dean really looked at it himself. And sure, it was pretty. The clouds all soaked in different shades of orange, red, and lavender. But it made Dean nervous because it was the sky, the heavens… and Cas just might be pining.

“Daniel may be too young yet to appreciate its beauty, but I saw no harm in trying.”

“Oh, yeah, hey, I agree, start him early. I tried to show him a kick-ass ’68 Charger, but he was unimpressed. Well, he shit himself, but not in a ‘man, that’s the coolest thing ever!’ sort of way.”

Castiel huffed and the corners of his mouth twitched in a smile. Then he turned his eyes skyward again, expression rapt, wistful, and blissed out all at once.

Fuck it, Dean had to know.

“Hey, Cas…?”

“Yes?”

“Are you going back to Heaven?”

Castiel stopped swaying. He lowered Daniel just a little, enough to turn his head and look at Dean with that trademark slightly-confused head-tilt. “I had intended to, since I’m no longer banished, and I _have_ missed it…” he glanced down at their son in his arms, “and I want Daniel to see Heaven when he’s older.”

Cas made it sound like he was talking about Disneyland… a vacation spot to take the kid. Someplace to visit, but not to stay. Or maybe Dean was just hearing it the way he wanted to. Because god damnit, _he didn’t want Castiel to go_.

“Yeah, but… I mean… are you ever going to go back to Heaven for good?”

The confused look on Castiel’s face was replaced with warmth and something else that Dean couldn’t identify.

“Yes. When you’re there.”

It was probably the sappiest thing anyone had ever said to Dean.

And he was totally okay with that.

END


End file.
